‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 85: South Africa files case against Israel at the ICJ for genocide

Casualties:

• 21,672 killed* and at least 56,165 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
• 316+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

*This figure is the latest confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health as of December 30. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number over 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

Key Developments

• South Africa files case against Israel at International Court of Justice, saying Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza were “genocidal in character.” 
• Israeli bombing of Gaza kills 165 people in the span of 24 hours, including Al-Quds journalist Jabr Abu Hadros.
• Wall Street Journal report likens destruction of Gaza to worst bombardment campaigns in modern history, experts warn could take decade and billions of dollars to rebuild. 
• Washington bypasses Congress to sell nearly $150 million in weapons to Israel. 
• United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns of increased risk of regional spillover of war, “with potential devastating consequences.”
• Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in occupied West Bank, including two allegedly involved in car-ramming attacks.
• Palestinian economy drops by 33 percent in the last three months of 2023, Gaza economy by 80 percent, Palestinian agencies report. 
• McDonald’s in Malaysia sues Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for $1 million in damages for losses in profit. 
• New York Times publishes an investigation into Israel’s failures on October 7: “The army does not prepare itself for things it thinks are impossible,” one source says.
• Israeli high school principal faces suspension over Facebook post sympathetic to plight of civilians in Gaza, Haaretz reports. 

South Africa files genocide case against Israel to the ICJ

South Africa filed a case against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday, accusing Tel Aviv of crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip since October 7. 

“South Africa is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants,” the South African government said in a statement.

The South African application to the United Nations-run ICJ — which is in charge of prosecuting governments, unlike the more widely known International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes individuals — notably claimed that “acts and omissions by Israel… are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent… to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

“The conduct of Israel — through its State organs, State agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence — in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention,” the application added.

Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and South Africa are all signatories of the Genocide Convention since 1950, 2014, and 1998, respectively, and are bound to abide by its terms.

South Africa, which endured a brutal apartheid regime for more than 40 years to which Israel’s oppressive colonial treatment of Palestinians has been repeatedly compared by human rights organizations, also requested that the ICJ order provisional measures to protect against “severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention,” WAFA news agency reported. While ICJ proceedings can take years, the separate request seeks to obtain a more immediate response to the ongoing slaughter in Gaza.

In November, South African lawmakers voted to close the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and sever diplomatic ties with Israel until a ceasefire was agreed upon.

Predictably, Israel has lashed out against the move, calling it “blood libel” — a term referring to accusations deemed to be antisemitic — and a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the Court.”

“Israel has made it clear that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not the enemy, and is making every effort to limit harm to the non-involved and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip,” spokesman Lior Hayat said, even as more than 70 percent of the more than 21,000 people killed in Gaza in the past three months have been women and children, and aid organizations have repeatedly decried the hurdles implemented by Israel in letting desperately needed aid inside the devastated Palestinian territory.

The Hamas movement, meanwhile, hailed the decision as “an important step towards holding the leaders of the entity, the criminals of our age, accountable for the most heinous massacres known to humanity in our contemporary history.”

Palestinian rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) welcomed the move while denouncing the inaction of other states in a thinly veiled reference to the United States’ continued military and diplomatic support of Israel’s rampage in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“As we witness this legal action, we stress that justice is a collective pursuit, requiring unwavering dedication from the international community,” the groups wrote in a joint press release. “South Africa’s request for Provisional Measures before the ICJ is not merely a legal procedure; it is a clarion call for the international community to prioritise accountability, reject impunity, and champion the principles of human rights.”

“As we call upon other Third States and the international community to support the proceedings at the ICJ and promptly intervene for an immediate ceasefire,” the joint press release continued. “We remind them, history harshly judges those who stand by during genocide. Neutrality in the face of injustice and genocide is nothing short of complicity, and a genuine commitment to the principles of justice and human dignity demands active engagement in upholding the rule of law.”

Also on Friday, the UN Security Council convened for an emergency session requested by the United Arab Emirates over the escalation of Israeli military and settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has meanwhile warned that the current violence, which has already drawn in armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, could further spiral.

“The risk of regional spillover of this conflict with potential devastating consequences for the entire region remains high given also a multitude of actors involved,” Guterres said in a statement on Friday.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza ‘to go down in history along with Dresden’

As always, Israeli forces continued to pummel the Gaza Strip between Friday and Saturday, bombarding Khan Younis, Rafah, al-Bureij, Jabalia, and Nuseirat refugee camp from the air and sea.

Al-Quds journalist Jabr Abu Hadros was killed alongside members of his family by Israeli bombardment in Nuseirat early on Saturday, the newspaper reported — bringing the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since October 7 to 106, according to WAFA news agency.

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported at midday on Saturday that at least 165 people had been killed and 250 wounded in the span of 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 21,672. Thousands more people have been declared missing.

In addition to the threat of bombs, the ministry said that more than 900,000 children who have taken refuge in shelters with their families were “exposed to the dangers of severe cold, dehydration, malnutrition, respiratory and skin diseases, and the lack of vaccinations for newborns.”

Fierce combat between Israeli ground forces and armed Palestinian groups was meanwhile reported in the areas of Khan Younis, Gaza City, al- Bureij, Tal al-Zaatar, and al-Maghazi.

The Israeli army claimed it found and destroyed a hideout used by Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has not commented on the claim.

The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reported on Saturday that the destruction waged by Israel in Gaza in the past three months was “comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record,” with 70 percent of homes in the enclave damaged or destroyed.

“The word ‘Gaza’ is going to go down in history along with Dresden and other famous cities that have been bombed,” Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and author of a history of aerial bombing, told WSJ. “What you’re seeing in Gaza is in the top 25% of the most intense punishment campaigns in history.”

The article went on to quote the Shelter Cluster, a coalition of aid groups, as estimating that it could take at least a year to clear out the rubble in what the U.S. newspaper described as Gaza’s “landscape of crumpled concrete.” 

“In a best-case scenario, it’s going to take decades” to rebuild Gaza, Caroline Sandes, an expert in postconflict redevelopment at Kingston University London, told WSJ.

Amid such a dismal analysis, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden once again bypassed Congress to approve weapon sales to Israel amounting to $147.5 million, the second time this month.

Washington has come under fire for not only providing Israel with the weapons through which to commit what numerous experts have called genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, but for blocking a number of U.N. resolutions seeking to obtain a ceasefire — all while claiming to advocate for the protection of civilians.

“We’ve been hearing from all the top Biden administration officials for weeks that it is time for Israel to move to a lower-intensity conflict. In essence, stop the mass bombing. Stop the mass deaths of civilians,” Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said on Saturday. “So, in that context — knowing that is what they say they want — they are now selling to Israel the exaction munitions they need to continue a high-intensity campaign.”

West Bank: Israeli forces kill three Palestinians, grab wounded teenager from ambulance

Israeli forces have killed at least three Palestinians since Friday afternoon in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A teenager, identified as Amr Abdel Fattah Abu Hussein, was killed by soldiers near the town of Abda in the southern West Bank on Friday after he allegedly carried out a car-ramming attack. WAFA news agency reported that Israeli forces let Abu Hussein die on the scene without providing medical assistance and assaulted several journalists trying to cover the scene.

Another Palestinian, identified as Mahmoud Othman Warni, was killed by Israeli forces during a raid in the central West Bank town of Eizariya on Friday night.

On Saturday afternoon, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Ministry of Health said Israeli forces had shot and killed Muhammad Hussein Masalmeh in al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron in the southern West Bank. Israeli media reported that Masalmeh was killed while allegedly carrying out a car-ramming attack.

A number of injured Palestinians, including at least one child, were reported in Tuqu, Qalqiliya, al-Tayyiba, al-Fawwar, al-Arroub refugee camp, and al-Jalazone refugee camp overnight during Israeli army raids that provoked clashes with local residents.

A 17-year-old Palestinian who had been shot in the chest was dragged out of an ambulance seeking to transport him to a hospital in Nablus by Israeli soldiers, who detained him. Israeli forces detained at least 14 Palestinians overnight across the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to exchange fire with armed groups in southern Lebanon and in Syria. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq group also claimed it had attacked a number of U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan in retaliation for American support of Israel. 

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) reported on Saturday that the Palestinian economy experienced a sharp decline in the last three months of the year due to the Israeli destruction of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s withholding of PA tax revenue, and the severe crackdown on the West Bank, which normally sees an influx of tourism in Bethlehem around Christmas, among other factors.

The report said the total Palestinian GDP dropped by 33 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023, while the GDP of Gaza dropped by 80 percent during the same period.