{"id":47027,"date":"2024-01-12T14:54:04","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T14:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/israel-rejects-genocide-charges-tells-world-court-it-must-defend-itself\/"},"modified":"2024-01-12T14:54:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T14:54:04","slug":"israel-rejects-genocide-charges-tells-world-court-it-must-defend-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/israel-rejects-genocide-charges-tells-world-court-it-must-defend-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel rejects genocide charges, tells World Court it must defend itself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>Israel on Friday rejected as false and \u201cgrossly distorted\u201d accusations brought by South Africa at the UN\u2019s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against the Palestinian population.<\/p>\n<p>Arguing it was acting to defend itself and was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian population, Israel called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to dismiss the case as groundless and reject South Africa\u2019s request to halt the offensive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is no genocide,\u201d lawyer Malcolm Shaw said.<\/p>\n<p>Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after a cross-border rampage on Oct 7 by Hamas fighters. Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed, mainly civilians, and 240 were taken hostage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe appalling suffering of civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, is first and foremost the result of Hamas\u2019 strategy,\u201d the Israeli foreign ministry\u2019s legal adviser, Tal Becker told the court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there were acts of genocide, they have been perpetrated against Israel,\u201d Becker said. \u201cHamas seeks genocide against Israel,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1805023\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>South Africa asked the court on Thursday to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt the offensive.<\/p>\n<p>It said Israel\u2019s aerial and ground offensive \u2014 which has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1800112\">laid waste to<\/a> much of the enclave and killed almost 24,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities \u2014 aimed to bring about \u201cthe destruction of the population\u201d of Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Israel rejected the accusations, saying it respected international law and had a right to defend itself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the cannons roar in Gaza the law is not silent,\u201d Deputy Attorney General Gilad Noam told the court.<\/p>\n<p>The <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/genocideprevention\/documents\/atrocity-crimes\/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf\">1948 Genocide Convention<\/a>, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as \u201cacts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group\u201d.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"suffering\" href=\"#suffering\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>Suffering<\/h2>\n<p>Israel, its defence team argued, was doing what it could to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, including efforts to urge Palestinians to evacuate.<\/p>\n<p>The court is expected to rule on possible emergency measures later this month but will not rule at that time on the genocide accusations. Those proceedings could take years. The ICJ\u2019s decisions are final and without appeal, but the court has no way to enforce them.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinian backers with flags marched through The Hague and watched proceedings on a giant screen in front of the Peace Palace. As the Israeli delegation spoke in court, they chanted: \u201cLiar! Liar!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"media  sm:w-full  w-full  media--stretch  \"><figcaption class=\"media__caption  \">A person holds a placard as pro-Palestinian protesters gather near the International Court of Justice as judges hear a request for emergency measures by South Africa to order Israel to stop its military actions in Gaza, in The Hague, Netherlands January 12. \u2014 Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Asked what she thought of Israel\u2019s arguments that the Gaza campaign was a matter of self-defence, Neen Haijjawi, a Palestinian who recently came to Netherlands said: \u201cHow can an occupier that\u2019s been oppressing people for 75 years say it\u2019s self-defence?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Israeli supporters were holding a separate gathering of family members of hostages taken by Hamas.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has said South Africa is acting as a mouthpiece for Islamist Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, Britain and several other nations. South Africa has rejected that accusation.<\/p>\n<p>Since Israeli forces started their offensive, nearly all of Gaza\u2019s 2.3 million people have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1801526\">driven from their homes<\/a> at least once, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.<\/p>\n<p>Post-apartheid South Africa has long advocated the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress\u2019 struggle against white-minority rule was supported by Yasser Arafat\u2019s Palestine Liberation Organisation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy grandfather always regarded the Palestinian struggle as the greatest moral issue of our time,\u201d Mandla Mandela, a grandson of the late South African president Nelson Mandela, said at a rally in support of the Palestinians in Cape Town.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israel on Friday rejected as false and \u201cgrossly distorted\u201d accusations brought by South Africa at the UN\u2019s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against the Palestinian population. Arguing it was acting to defend itself and was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian population, Israel called on the International Court [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/01\/121849276631348.jpg?r=184948","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}