On the second and ultimate day of preliminary hearings on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ), Israel’s authorized group insisted that the dual navy targets have been to eradicate the existential menace posed by Hamas militants and to free some 136 hostages nonetheless held within the war-shattered enclave.
“Israel is in a warfare of defence towards Hamas, not towards the Palestinian folks” within the aftermath of Hamas-led terror assaults on 7 October, Israel co-agent Tal Becker instructed judges in The Hague.
There had been “tragic” and “heartbreaking” civilian struggling “on this warfare, like in all wars”, Mr. Becker stated, as he learn out the final anguished textual content messages despatched by the daddy of 1 Israeli farming household, burned to loss of life of their dwelling by presumed Hamas fighters who “tortured kids in entrance of fogeys and oldsters in entrance of kids”.
Defence ‘obligations’
Mr. Becker additionally rejected South Africa’s petition to the courtroom beneath the provisions of the Genocide Convention to concern “provisional measures” to order Israel to right away droop its navy marketing campaign in Gaza.
This amounted “to an try to deny Israel its capacity to satisfy its obligations to the defence of its residents, to the hostages and to over 110,000 displaced Israelis unable to securely return to their properties”, he stated.
The problem of justified self-defence featured prominently in Israel’s presentation.
When a State is attacked, it has the proper to defend itself and its residents, Israel’s authorized group insisted, earlier than underscoring the deep trauma ensuing from the 7 October terror assaults by Hamas and different Palestinian militants who rampaged throughout southern Israel, slaughtering some 1,200 folks and taking round 250 captive.
“There isn’t any genocidal intent right here; that is no genocide,” stated Israel counsel Malcolm Shaw. Hamas atrocities “don’t justify violations of the regulation in reply – nonetheless much less genocide – however they do justify…the train of the reliable and inherent proper of a State to defend itself as enshrined within the UN Charter“.
New UN ceasefire name
In a associated growth on Friday, the UN human rights workplace, OHCHR, reiterated its name for a direct finish to the violence in Gaza.
“There have to be a ceasefire to finish the appalling struggling and lack of life and to permit the immediate and efficient supply of humanitarian help to a inhabitants dealing with surprising ranges of starvation and illness,” OHCHR stated in a statement.
Prior to now 14 weeks of battle in Gaza, Israel’s “large and harmful navy response” had left greater than 23,000 Palestinians useless, some two thirds of them girls and kids, the UN rights workplace stated.
It additionally famous that Palestinian armed teams had continued to launch “indiscriminate rockets in direction of Israel”.
Civilian infrastructure in Gaza, together with properties, hospitals, colleges, bakeries, locations of worship, water programs in addition to the UN’s personal services have additionally been broadly broken or destroyed, OHCHR continued, describing the state of affairs in southern Gaza as “untenable”, with over 1.3 million internally displaced folks crammed into the southern metropolis of Rafah near the Egyptian border.
‘Weaponizing genocide’
Rejecting South Africa’s “profoundly distorted” description of the warfare in Gaza, Israel’s authorized group accused that nation’s authorized group of trying to “weaponize” the time period genocide, which it insisted was a greater description of Hamas’s “annihilationist language” about “cleaning” Palestine of Jews.
The armed group which controls Gaza had diverted billions of {dollars} of help and turned the Strip into “maybe probably the most subtle terrorist stronghold within the historical past of city warfare” embedded in communities, the courtroom heard.
“City warfare will all the time lead to tragic deaths, hurt and injury, however in Gaza these undesired outcomes are exacerbated as a result of they’re the specified outcomes of Hamas,” stated Galit Raguan, for Israel.
Asserting that “each single hospital” searched by Israeli Protection Forces had discovered proof of navy use by Hamas, the Israel authorized counsel additionally alleged that weapons had been discovered hidden inside a hospital incubator.
The world courtroom additionally heard how the Israeli navy had demonstrated “the exact reverse” of any attainable genocidal intent by limiting its focusing on to navy personnel or targets “in accordance with worldwide humanitarian regulation in a proportionate method in every case”.
Israel’s efforts “to mitigate hurt” throughout navy operations and to alleviate struggling by way of humanitarian actions had gone “comparatively unnoticed” amid the “unprecedented and intensive” use of phone calls and leafletting to warn populations of impending battle, the Israel authorized group famous.
Subsequent steps within the case
Now that preliminary representations from each South Africa and Israel have concluded on the ICJ, one of many justices’ first duties is to evaluate whether or not there are ample grounds to approve the South African software for provisional measures towards Israel, to “defend towards additional, extreme and irreparable hurt to the rights of the Palestinian folks beneath the Genocide Conference”.
They’re designed “to make sure Israel’s compliance with its obligations beneath the Genocide Conference to not interact in genocide, and to forestall and to punish genocide”, according to an earlier ICJ press release.
These measures are anticipated in weeks, authorized commentators have stated.
If this leads to a ceasefire name which isn’t applied, the matter would then have to be taken up by the UN Security Council, which may then agree on a decision geared toward implementing an finish to hostilities.
Subsequent month, the world courtroom can be resulting from take into account a separate case regarding Israel and Palestine, requested by the UN Normal Meeting in a resolution adopted on 30 December 2022, earlier than the present battle.
In that decision, the Normal Meeting requested an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the authorized penalties of “Israeli practices and affecting the human rights of the Palestinian folks within the Occupied Palestinian Territory, together with East Jerusalem”.
The process will contain a public listening to on 19 February 2024, after the courtroom takes receipt of written experiences from quite a few States.