“’South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people.’ With those words, Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, opened his government’s historic suit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague charging the state of Israel with multiple violations of the Genocide Convention.”

“South Africa’s petition to the ICJ is filled with clear and horrifically compelling examples, identifying Israeli actions that match at least three of the five acts that constitute genocide when linked to specific intent. Those include killing members of the group, causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group, and, perhaps most indicative of genocidal purpose, creating ‘conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.’ As South Africa documents, Israel has shown the world, at levels unprecedented in the 21st century, what those conditions look like. For specific intent, South Africa points to dozens of…

“An act of genocide was committed by Israel on Oct. 13 2023, when the Israel Defense Force ordered the evacuation of upwards of one million persons from the northern sector of Gaza. That population was ordered to move immediately to an area of Gaza to the south of Wadi Gaza, a valley that transects the Gaza Strip. The Genocide Convention is a treaty that defines a criminal offense and proscribes its commission, whether by individual persons, or by states. Under Article 2, the actus reus, as here relevant, is the act of ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life…

She adds, “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was involved in the Middle East conflict since the 1920s when it recognized that what was happening in Palestine was destined to be catastrophic. The genocidal war the government of Israel is waging in the Occupied Palestinian Territories against the Palestinian People must be stopped. I urge all to challenge their governments to live up to the principles of the UN Charter and international law, including human rights and humanitarian law.”

Wednesday evening, supporters of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum projected photographs and slides on the exterior walls calling on the world to “Never Again” tolerate genocide for anyone. The photographs showed scenes of atrocities in Gaza with the words “Stop the Genocide in Gaza,” “Ceasefire Now,” and “Silence=Death.” See photo as well as video.

A newly formed coalition is urging other countries to file Declarations of Intervention at the International Court of Justice in support of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine convened around the urgent need for nations to invoke the Genocide Convention as a way to end the State of Israel’s devastating bombing campaign and additional war crimes being committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That effort advanced on Dec. 29 when South Africa submitted a well-documented case against Israel to the International Court of Justice.

“A deadly attack near the tomb of Iran’s Gen. Soleimani, assassinated by the U.S. four years ago, has left at least 86 dead as per Iranian media. This is likely to escalate the already high tensions in the Middle East, with many in Iran suspecting Israeli involvement. … Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi: ‘The first explosion occurred at 3 PM, and when people gathered to help, the second explosion happened. Most of the martyrs and injured were affected by the second explosion.’” 

Boyle assessed that a South African victory was likely at the ICJ in spite of the presidency of the Court being held currently by Joan Donoghue, a former State Department official. He also charged the Biden administration with “aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide” and “violating the the U.S. Genocide Convention Implementation Act.” He stressed the importance of other countries filing Declarations of Intervention with the ICJ in support of the South African application.

“This section provides an overview of the acts in which Israel has engaged that are genocidal in character, having regard to their nature, scope and context. These acts are ongoing, and ongoing in a conflict context, where Israel is deliberately imposing telecommunications blackouts on Gaza and restricting access by fact-finding bodies and the international media. At the same time Palestinian journalists are being killed at a rate significantly higher than has occurred in any conflict in the past 100 years. In the two months since 7 October 2023, the number of journalists killed already exceeded that of the entirety of…

“The two abstentions by Russia and the United States will further convince” much of the world that “Russia is the more worthy of their support. They are both abstaining because the resolution does not call for a cease-fire that would stop the killing. But Russia wants the cease-fire, whereas the United States does not.”