TEHRAN - Israel used its notorious propaganda machine at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by citing the most outrageous lies in an attempt to distract global attention away from the atrocious crimes that it has been committing in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

At an ICJ hearing on Friday, Israeli officials and lawyers rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza brought up by South Africa and instead tried to give cock-and-bull stories. 

Israel justifies genocide 

Israeli Deputy Attorney General Gilad Noam told judges, "This war, like all wars, is tragic and terrible for Israelis and Palestinians and it has exacted a terrible human price. But it is not genocide." 

Noam accused South Africa of making “a mockery of the heinous charge of genocide”.

And this is how he sought to justify the Israeli army’s massacre of civilians in Gaza. “Any state put in Israel’s difficult position would do the same," Noam claimed. 

Sheer hypocrisy 

Another member of Israel’s legal team defended the regime’s military conduct, saying it has allowed in fuel and medication to Gaza.

“Israel takes extraordinary measures in order to minimize the harm to civilians in Gaza,” Tamar Kaplan-Tourgeman told the ICJ. 

A protester shouting “Liars” briefly interrupted Kaplan-Tourgeman’s final remarks. 

Israel has largely restricted the entry of food, water, medicines and other essentials to Gaza over the past seven months, which in the eye of UN experts, amounts to intentionally starving Palestinians.

“There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian, in February. 

“Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian.

In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable – not just individuals or this government or that person,” Fakhri added. 

Breaking Geneva Convention

The members of the Israeli team were speaking in the second day of two days of hearings at the United Nations top court. South Africa's lawyers outlined their case on Thursday. 

Pretoria on Thursday called on the ICJ judges to order Israel to end its ground assault on Rafah. They said the military incursion puts Palestinian life in the territory at imminent risk of destruction.

“It has become increasingly clear that Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game in which Gaza is utterly destroyed as an area capable of human habitation…This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian people,” Vaughan Lowe, a British lawyer, who was part of the South African legal team that presented its case on Thursday, said. 

South African lawyers also accused Israel of breaking the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Gaza carnage 

Israel declared war on Gaza after Hamas carried out a surprise military operation in southern Israel on October 7. Since then, Israel has slaughtered more than 35,300 Palestinians in the territory.

At the beginning of the war, Israel ordered Palestinians in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah. Consequently, more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, who had fled Israeli strikes, took shelter in Rafah amid dire conditions.  

On May 6, Israel began a ground military operation in Rafah despite warnings about the humanitarian consequences of the offensive.  Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee Gaza’s southernmost city in the past two weeks. 

The Israeli army says the Rafah offensive is aimed at targeting fighters of the Hamas resistance movement. 

However, more civilians are falling victim as Israel expands its assault on the city. 

Defying intl. law 

The two-day hearings were part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip that were filed in December last year. 

In late January this year, the ICJ ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.  But Israel has turned a blind eye to the ruling and continued its deadly strikes in the Gaza Strip. 

The ICJ has no means of enforcing its orders.

But the South Africa case has contributed to the international pressure on Israel to put a halt to its brutal onslaught. 

Israel PR machine 

The comments made by the Israeli team at the ICJ hearing demonstrate the regime’s utter contempt for the UN court.

A week ago, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan pulled out a paper shredder at the podium of the General Assembly and shredded a copy of the UN Charter. He wanted to vent his anger at the assembly’s resolution in support of Palestinian membership.

Such moves by Israelis show that the regime has no scruples about making a mockery of international law. 

Arab League statement 

As Israel presses ahead with its offensive in Gaza, the Arab League called for a ceasefire in the territory.  

“We stress the need to stop the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip immediately, withdraw the Israeli occupation forces from all areas of the Strip [and] lift the siege imposed on it,” the Arab League said in a statement issued by its 22 members that attended a summit in Bahrain.

It called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank until the so-called two-state solution can be negotiated. 

The statement demanded that the UN Security Council set a time limit for that political process. It noted that the two-state solution should be based on the borders that were in place before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 with al-Quds (East Jerusalem) as the Palestinian capital.

Israel is opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Previous negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have also made no progress.

Israel’s leaked documents also show that it has tried to forcibly transfer Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinia as part of a postwar plan. However, Palestinians have foiled the Israeli plot by putting up fierce resistance. 

Some Arab countries that attended the Arab League summit have normalized ties with Israel over the past years. If Arab countries are sincere in their concern for Palestinians, they can sever ties with the regime. 

Issuing statements to condemn Israeli crimes without taking any practical action is nothing more than paying lip services. 

West’s inaction has emboldened Israel

Unfortunately, Western countries, in particular the US, continue to throw their weight behind Israel via sending weapons. This has emboldened the regime to go ahead with its deadly military campaign in Gaza.

In a total disregard for international calls to halt the Gaza war, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said after the ICJ hearings that Israel wont’s stop its onslaught.  

Presently, the inaction of Western countries towards Israel’s military conduct in Gaza amounts to offering the regime carte blanche to kill Palestinian civilians.