South Africa urges UN court to stop Israeli assault in Gaza

South Africa once again condemned Israel on Thursday for its "genocidal acts" in Gaza, calling for an order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to stop the assault, reported Xinhua.

On Thursday morning, the ICJ opened a two-day hearing of a case filed by South Africa against Israel for the latter's "violations of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the 'Genocide Convention')."

"It's my task to address the court on the genocidal acts that have led to this urgent request for provisional measures..." against Israel's violation of the convention by "committing actions that fall within the definition of genocide," said African lawyer Adila Hassim.

"The actions show a systematic pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred," she added.

"For the past 96 days, Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare," she said.

"23,210 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during the sustained attacks over the last three months," she said. "At least 70 percent of whom I believed to be women and children. Some 7,000 Palestinians are still missing, presumed dead under the rubble."

South Africa has requested that the court take "provisional measures" to "protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention."

In its request, South Africa demanded an order from the UN court that "The state of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza." It also demanded that Israel should submit a report on its compliance with the order one week after it is issued.

ICJ judges are scheduled to hear Israel's arguments on Friday.

Since Hamas launched its surprise attack on Oct. 7, about 1,200 people in Israel, including 790 civilians, were killed in the initial assault as hundreds of Hamas fighters and Gazans raided southern communities. Hamas took 253 people hostage, with 132 people still held in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry reported that the Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli aggression has risen to 23,357, and about 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.3 million population is displaced as the Israeli bombardments have leveled entire neighborhoods.