South Africa at the ICJ: The Court Must Assert International Law

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice for urgent provisional measures including:

• The State of Israel shall immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive in the Rafah Governorate.

• The State of Israel shall immediately take all effective measures to ensure and facilitate the unimpeded access to Gaza of United Nations and other officials engaged in the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance to the population of Gaza, as well as fact-finding missions, internationally mandated bodies or officials, investigators, and journalists, in order to assess and record conditions on the ground in Gaza and enable the effective preservation and retention of evidence, and shall ensure that its military does not act to prevent such access, provision, preservation or retention.

AP feed has the full hearing, including largely procedural matters that took up the first 20 minutes. A full transcript is here.

Here are clips of some individual speakers via Newzroom Afrika:

Vusimuzi Madonsela, Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to the Netherlands: “South Africa is mindful that the present genocide operates in denial of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and collective right to return to their homes in Palestine. This genocide takes place within the context of the ongoing Nakba –– the 76th anniversary of which was celebrated yesterday –– the continued forced displacement of the Palestinian people, the erasure of Palestinian presence in Palestine and replacement with colonial settlers –– a criminal process entrenched and maintained by 76 years of apartheid and 56 years of illegal belligerent occupation. Undoubtedly, the ongoing scenes of Palestinians being forced to repeatedly flee for their lives is not only reminiscent of the Nakba of 1948 –– it is a continuation of it.”

Vaughan Lowe: “The key point today is that Israel’s declared aim of wiping Gaza from the map is about to be realized. Further, evidence of appalling crimes and atrocities is literally being destroyed and bulldozed, in effect wiping the slate clean for those who have committed these crimes and making a mockery of justice. The Court is not powerless, and South Africa submits, with respect, that it must do something to assert not only its own authority but the authority of international law.”

Adila Hassim: “Israel has defied every single provisional measure indicated by this Court in its Orders of 26 January 2024 and 28 March 2024 and its decision of 16 February. As I stand before you today, Palestinians in Gaza are not safe. They are not secure. They are still being subjected to an ongoing and intensifying genocide at the hands of Israel. Their future hangs in the balance.”

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi: “Rafah is the last stage of the ‘total annihilation’ of Palestinian life. Without Rafah, the possibility to rebuild and reconstruct Palestinian life will be lost forever. For Palestinians to continue to exist as a protected group under the Genocide Convention, they need a place from which to rebuild. As we stand here today, Rafah is that place. The last stand.”

Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh: “There is an urgent need for further or modified, explicit and specific provisional measures to protect the Palestinians in Gaza from the irreparable prejudice caused by Israel’s continuing violations of the Genocide Convention and of this Court’s Orders, including an express order for the immediate cessation of Israel’s military operations in Rafah and across the whole of the Gaza Strip. … Recent evidence from a former Israeli reservist active in Gaza indicates that soldiers on the ground treat Israeli-ordered ‘evacuation areas’ — such as those recently ordered for significant parts of Rafah and northern Gaza — as ‘extermination zones’ wherein orders to ‘shoot and kill’ Palestinians are made on the basis of their location alone.”