The ICJ Case

I appreciate that most people have not been following along - coverage of it is spotty at best. Note, this isn't a dig at media companies for trying to hide the news or something like that. It's an ICJ trial, one of those things that sound important and worthy of front page coverage - but is never treated like that. We have a recent example - there were provisional measures hearings over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and those barely got coverage as well. So it seems reasonable to me that most media isn't putting a lot of emphasis on the proceedings and that most people aren't aware of what's happened so far at the Hague.

South Africa presented a pretty solid case - one that followed their written submission pretty closely. To me (and IANAL) it seemed like solid arguments. They addressed standing and jurisdiction (the Genocide Convention explicitly grants jurisdiction to the ICJ and standing to all signatories to act to prevent genocide). They addressed genocidal acts (the harms done to Gazans, and the generational harm inflicted on Gaza's children). They addressed genocidal intent (the repeated statements of many decision making Israeli leaders as well as these sentiments being expressed by soldiers on the ground in Gaza). And they focused on what they were asking - that the provisional measures are required to prevent further irreparable harm. Highlighted in the closing statement about how many Gazans and Gazan children were being killed by the ongoing military operation.

I couldn't have done this. My argument would probably have been - "FFS, just look at what's happening!"

That was yesterday. Israel is up today to address these accusations. Here's my understanding of what their position is.

Israel has a right to defend itself (from belligerents in a territory they are occupying with military force and violence).

HAMAS! We're fighting Hamas, therefore anything we do is proportional and justified. Are there civilian casualties? That's Hamas' fault. When criminals hide behind civilians, everybody knows that you're allowed to bomb the entire neighbourhood. And if you don't know which specific neighbourhood they are in, well you just gotta bomb them all.

Also, sure we've destroyed most of the housing stock in Gaza - but these were all very targeted and surgical strikes. It's only like, a third of a million homes that have been destroyed - and in that we managed to take out like 9,000 Hamas fighters! Can't you see how careful we're being to only hit military targets? Please don't think about how we got to 9,000 Hamas fighters killed when the death toll is 23,000 and 2/3 of these casualties are women and children (i.e. fewer than 9,000 of those acknowledged to have been killed are adult men).

Also, like - we've told them to move south. We dropped leaflets and everything! You stay in an area we say we're bombing - then it's your own fault if you get bombed. Also, we never bombed any hospitals - the damage you see is due to "hostilities" happening nearby to the hospitals.

Also, if you say that this campaign of bombing all these civilians is genocide - it cheapens the word genocide.

Also, South Africa is only doing this because they hate us and also because they are Hamas.

Also, Israel has of course never broken any rules of war - but if any such thing were to occur, the appropriate place to address them is in Israel's "robust and independent legal system". You can tell - look at the West Bank where Israeli settler terrorism has resulted in the arrests of several thousand (Palestinains and zero settlers).

Also, Israel is obviously not depriving Palestinians in Gaza of much needed food, water, and medical supplies. Many hundreds of trucks have made their way in! (for a population of over 2 million across the span of three months). This is evidence that the military operations aren't impeding the delivery of aid (despite the fact that a huge chunk of that aid was delivered during the week-long truce. I think at this point it's about half of it).

And apparently the closing was something like - South Africa has not shown that provisional measures are required. As if the ongoing deaths and other harms that Gazans are currently experiencing are no big deal. It's almost as if Israel wanted to make South Africa's argument for them in the closing statement - no one denies that Gazans are dying and suffering a lot of harm from the military operations, but not allowing it to continue is the wrong thing to do.

EDIT - re: aid trucks. 4,301 aid trucks entered Gaza between October 21 and December 16. During the truce, it was roughly 200 per day. So 1,400 in 7 days of truce vs 2,900 in 49 days of not-truce. Also - pre-October 7, Gaza got 500 trucks per day - and very few of them were needed for water as that came by pipes which Israel turned off weeks ago.