On the second and remaining day of preliminary hearings on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ), Israel’s authorized workforce insisted that the dual army targets had been to eradicate the existential risk posed by Hamas militants and to free some 136 hostages nonetheless held within the war-shattered enclave.
“Israel is in a struggle 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 struggle, 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 residence by presumed Hamas fighters who “tortured kids in entrance of oldsters and fogeys in entrance of youngsters”.
Defence ‘obligations’
Mr. Becker additionally rejected South Africa’s petition to the court docket beneath the provisions of the Genocide Convention to subject “provisional measures” to order Israel to right away droop its army marketing campaign in Gaza.
This amounted “to an try and deny Israel its capacity to fulfill its obligations to the defence of its residents, to the hostages and to over 110,000 displaced Israelis unable to soundly return to their houses”, he stated.
The problem of justified self-defence featured prominently in Israel’s presentation.
When a State is attacked, it has the appropriate to defend itself and its residents, Israel’s authorized workforce 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 a genocidal intent right here; that is no genocide,” stated Israel counsel Malcolm Shaw. Hamas atrocities “don’t justify violations of the legislation 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 improvement on Friday, the UN human rights workplace, OHCHR, reiterated its name for an instantaneous 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 going through stunning ranges of starvation and illness,” OHCHR stated in a statement.
Up to now 14 weeks of battle in Gaza, Israel’s “large and harmful army response” had left greater than 23,000 Palestinians lifeless, 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 the direction of Israel”.
Civilian infrastructure in Gaza, together with houses, hospitals, faculties, bakeries, locations of worship, water methods in addition to the UN’s personal services have additionally been broadly broken or destroyed, OHCHR continued, describing the scenario 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 struggle in Gaza, Israel’s authorized workforce accused that nation’s authorized workforce of making an attempt 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 refined terrorist stronghold within the historical past of city warfare” embedded in communities, the court docket 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 army use by Hamas, the Israel authorized counsel additionally alleged that weapons had been discovered hidden inside a hospital incubator.
The world court docket additionally heard how the Israeli army had demonstrated “the exact reverse” of any potential genocidal intent by limiting its concentrating on to army personnel or targets “in accordance with worldwide humanitarian legislation in a proportionate method in every case”.
Israel’s efforts “to mitigate hurt” throughout army operations and to alleviate struggling by way of humanitarian actions had gone “comparatively unnoticed” amid the “unprecedented and in depth” use of phone calls and leafletting to warn populations of impending battle, the Israel authorized workforce 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 enough 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 stop 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 carried out, the matter would then have to be taken up by the UN Security Council, which may then agree on a decision aimed toward implementing an finish to hostilities.
Subsequent month, the world court docket can also be resulting from take into account a separate case regarding Israel and Palestine, requested by the UN Basic Meeting in a resolution adopted on 30 December 2022, earlier than the present battle.
In that decision, the Basic 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 court docket takes receipt of written stories from quite a few States.
