Lawyers representing South Africa, including Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh (above), petitioned the ICJ to order an emergency suspension of Israel's Gaza campaign(ICJ) has begun hearing a landmark legal action brought by South Africa which accuses Israel of breaching the UN genocide convention in its conduct of the war against Hamas and demands the suspension of its military campaign.
The 1948 genocide convention was drawn up after the second World War to ensure that the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Nazi Holocaust could never recur. The case was filed last month by South Africa and alleges that “acts and omissions by Israel are genocidal in character” with the specific intention to “destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.” Three months of Israeli bombardment has laid much of the coastal enclave to waste, killing more than 23,000 people and driving nearly the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their home