A view of International Court of Justice (ICJ) on August 07, 2024 [Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency]
Ireland has submitted a declaration to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Tuesday, Anadolu Agency reports.
“Ireland, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” or South Africa versus Israel, the Court said in a statement.
Irish Foreign Minister, Micheal Martin, announced last month that they would join the case after they secured government approval for the move under the Genocide Convention.
Under Article 63, any state party to a convention that is under judicial consideration has the right to intervene, making the ICJ’s interpretation of that convention binding on them as well.
In December 2023, South Africa filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel, claiming violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Several countries have since joined the case, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain and Turkiye.
Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since a Hamas attack in October 2023 despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
Nearly 46,000 people, mostly women and children, have since been killed and over 105,000 injured, according to local health authorities.
The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the Territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
The bodies of the Palestinian adults and children killed in an Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi “safe zone” are brought to al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, Palestine for funeral procedures on January 2, 2025. (Photo: Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The analysis was published a day before Israeli forces bombed yet another “safe zone,” killing at least 12 Palestinians, including children.
A report published on Wednesday details how Israel forcibly expels Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in order to facilitate—and hide—genocidal attacks in evacuated areas, while forcing refugees into alleged humanitarian “safe zones” that are “intentionally designed to ensure the destruction of all life sheltering there.”
The Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq published the report, titled How to Hide a Genocide, which examines “the role of evacuation orders and safe zones in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.”
In #2025, Israel’s genocidal violence against #Palestinians in Gaza continues to increase. 📣Our new report ‘How to Hide a Genocide’ examines the use of so-called ‘evacuation orders’ & ‘safe zones’, which constitute war crimes & crimes against humanity. https://t.co/nt6UukE3RY
Since the very first week of its genocide, Israel has methodically cleared vast stretches of the Gaza Strip of its inhabitants through its unlawful issuance of evacuation orders. Israel presents these evacuation orders to the public as proof of its efforts to minimize civilian casualties and to support its alleged compliance with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. However, they achieve the direct opposite. Over 90% of Gaza’s population… has been forcibly displaced from their homes and temporary shelters, the majority of them multiple times, to alleged safe zones.
Contrary to their label, these zones are anything but safe. With insufficient space, shelter, sanitation facilities, food, or water sources, and medical care, these safe zones are intentionally designed to ensure the destruction of all life sheltering there. What’s more, the safe zones—despite their unilateral establishment by Israel—are routinely targeted by Israeli occupying forces (IOF) by air, land, and sea. Crowded together with nowhere to flee, Palestinians in Gaza are either killed by Israeli strikes, severely physically and mentally injured by the IOF’s physical and psychological warfare, or subject to a slow death as a result of starvation, dehydration, a complete lack of crucial medical care, or the rampant spread of infectious diseases in the densely populated, unsanitary zones.
Al-Haq said: “As shown throughout the report, by applying humanitarian terms to its practice of forcibly transferring Palestinians, without any legal basis and in a manner that breaches international law, and labeling areas as safe zones despite being constantly attacked and lacking in all essentials for survival, Israel argues that it is acting in accordance with its legal obligations when in fact it is providing further evidence of its genocidal intent as it uses these measures to commit and contribute to the genocidal acts of killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.”
The Al-Haq report was published shortly after Sila Mahmoud Al-Faseeh, a 3-week-old baby girl, died from hypothermia in the al-Mawasi safe zone in southern Gaza. She is one of at least eight people—seven of them infants or children—who have reportedly frozen to death in Gaza in recent weeks.
The report was also published a day before Israeli forces bombed a tent encampment in al-Mawasi, killing at least 12 Palestinians including three children and wounding at least 15 others.
It was one of numerous Israeli strikes on the al-Mawasi safe zone, which have killed or wounded at least hundreds of Palestinians. In the deadliest of these, at least 90 Palestinians including many women and children were killed—some of them burned alive in their tents—and hundreds of others were injured when eight 2,000-pound bombs, at least one of which was supplied by the United States, were dropped on the humanitarian zone on July 13, 2024 in order to assassinate Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Israeli forces then attacked and killed rescue workers arriving at the site of the strike.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the death toll from the strike “unacceptably high.” However, just weeks later, the Biden administration approved approximately $20 billion worth of new U.S. weapons for Israel.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands is currently weighing whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
A Palestinian girl carries an empty jerry can amid the ruins of Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 4, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease,” said the rights group’s director.
A Human Rights Watch report published Thursday accuses Israel of “extermination and acts of genocide” in Gaza “by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.”
Mirroring language used in Article II of the Genocide Convention to define the crime of genocide, HRW said that Israeli officials “have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza” by deliberately denying Palestinians “access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival.”
“Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies,” the report states.
“In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide,” HRW continued. “The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.”
NEW: For over a year, the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the minimum water needed for survival, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.A calculated policy.An act of genocide. 🧵⤵️www.hrw.org/news/2024/12…
HRW “also found that some statements from senior Israeli officials calling for cutting water, fuel, and aid, in tandem with their actions, have amounted to direct and public incitement to genocide.”
According to the report:
Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups in Gaza on October 7, 2023, which Human Rights Watch has found amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities cut all electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip. On October 9, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”
That same day, and for weeks thereafter, Israeli authorities cut off all water and blocked fuel, food, and humanitarian aid from entering the strip. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of water, fuel, food, and aid into Gaza and to cut Gaza’s electricity, which is required to operate life-sustaining infrastructure. This continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024 ordering Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide and, in so doing, provide humanitarian aid, specifying in March that this includes water, food, electricity, and fuel.
HRW detailed how Israel “also barred nearly all water-related aid from entering Gaza, including water filtration systems, water tanks, and materials needed to repair water infrastructure,” and how Israeli forces “have deliberately attacked and damaged or destroyed several major water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities.”
“Based on interviews with healthcare professionals and epidemiologists, it is likely that thousands of people have died as a result of the Israeli authorities’ actions,” the report states, adding that deaths are in addition to the more than 45,000 Palestinians directly killed by Israeli bombs and bullets.
HRW added that hundreds of thousands of Gazans have contracted diseases and ailments attributable to a lack of access to safe and sufficient water, including diarrhea, hepatitis A, skin diseases, and upper respiratory infections.
“Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” HRW executive director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide.”
Without naming any specific nations, the report notes that “several governments have undermined accountability efforts and continue to provide the Israeli government with arms despite the clear risk of complicity in serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
The United States is Israel’s main arms supplier and diplomatic ally, approving tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons transfers, vetoing several United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions, and threatening international officials seeking to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.
“Governments should not contribute to the grave crimes that Israeli officials are committing in Gaza, including crimes against humanity and genocidal acts, and should take all steps possible to prevent further harm,” Hassan said. “Governments arming Israel should end their risk of complicity in atrocity crimes in Gaza and take immediate action to protect civilians with an arms embargo, targeted sanctions, and support for justice.”
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
The British Palestinian Committee (BPC) and UK Gaza Community (UKGC) convened a press conference in London yesterday, bringing together healthcare workers and British-Palestinian voices to expose the scale of Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza amid an enforced media blackout.
The event, held metres away from BBC Broadcasting House, aimed to break through the information vacuum created by Israel’s targeting of journalists and closure of the besieged Gaza Strip from the world. With 193 journalists killed since 7 October 2023 and systematic restrictions on media access, particularly in northern Gaza, evidence of massacres, mass executions and widespread destruction has largely fallen out of the news cycle.
The attacks in northern Gaza represent the most violent and brutal assaults in the history of Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine, the organisers pointed out, as speakers prepared to share harrowing testimonies of death and devastation in the Gaza Strip.
Mai Annan, speaking via video link from Gaza where she leads the Reviving Gaza mutual aid project, provided a chilling account of Israeli military tactics. “We started hearing loudspeakers asking the men in the building to come out naked, then they asked the women and children to come out. They lined up the men, and the soldiers began firing at them randomly,” she recounted. “Many were killed, and some were wounded and left to bleed to death. Then they put all the women and children in one room and threw a gas grenade inside. It’s very clear to us that everyone is a target, and the plan is just to kill and kill more.”
They lined up the men, and the soldiers began firing at them randomly. Then they put all the women and children in one room and threw a gas grenade inside.
Dr Mahim Qureshi, a London-based vascular surgeon who recently returned in November after volunteering in Gaza detailed the catastrophic medical situation. “The types of injuries are predominantly blast injuries,” she explained, “but the degree of overcrowding and lack of hygiene, lack of antibiotics and high level of antibiotic resistance means people cannot fight basic infections.” She described how young girls arrived with gunshot wounds to the head, while doctors, lacking basic neurosurgical equipment, were forced to drill through skulls with inadequate tools in desperate attempts to save lives.
Hala Sabbah, the London-based coordinator of the Sameer Project aid group, explained how aid has been weaponised through systematic starvation. “Prior to the genocide 400-500 trucks entered Gaza, starting from October only 50 trucks were permitted,” she explained. “Zionists are collaborating with people on the ground to make sure these trucks are stolen. Not only are the number of trucks limited they are making sure it’s not reaching the victims. Palestinians pay thousands to buy the basic necessities.”
Dr Mohamed Ashraf, who worked in northern Gaza during the initial phase of Israel’s assault, shared devastating evidence of the targeting of medical personnel. He displayed photographs of murdered colleagues, speaking of Dr Mosab Sama, abducted from Nasser Hospital with no information about his whereabouts, and Dr Maisara Rais, killed and still buried under rubble with his family. Of his own family’s fate, he explained how he has been contacting hospitals to see if they received the bodies of his wife and daughter – their silence the only indication they might still be alive.
Ahmed Najjar, born in Jabaliya refugee camp, provided testimony of living there for 55 years before this assault. “This wasn’t just another military campaign,” he said, “this was an attempt to erase an entire people. North of Gaza is stripped of its humanity and its home.” His sister was told at gunpoint to abandon her son, while his brother watched helplessly. His father, older than the state of Israel, initially refused to move, saying he was tired of being displaced, before Israel’s relentless bombardment finally forced him to flee to Gaza City.
Dr Loai Nasir reported that 400,000 people remain besieged in northern Gaza, facing severe food insecurity as Israeli authorities consistently deny food deliveries. Ibrahim Assalia testified about the use of unknown chemical agents, describing how his father died after inhaling an Israeli substance. Speaking recently with his family, they told him “they are dying of hunger. People in north Gaza are feeding on grass and trees.”
The conference also unveiled new evidence of British complicity in Israel’s military campaign. A comprehensive report launched by the BPC detailed how British military infrastructure actively supports Israel’s assault on Gaza. Khem Rogaly explained that Britain’s military collaboration “goes far beyond licensing exports.” Britain’s global F35 programmes and export of components are essential for Israel to fly the F35 and bomb Gaza. British parts are central to the regular repairs needed to maintain Israel’s bombing campaign.
The human cost of Britain’s military support was further illustrated through testimony about the devastating medical situation in Gaza. Qureshi described how chronic illnesses are killing Gazans but their numbers are not added to the death toll. She noted that what she witnessed in the south could not compare to the horror unfolding in the north. Healthcare workers shared accounts of performing surgeries without anaesthesia, while Ashraf recounted doctors watching helplessly as patients died from treatable conditions due to lack of basic medical supplies. The toll on medical staff has been both physical and mental, with many forced to work through their own trauma while treating an endless stream of casualties
The systematic targeting of healthcare workers emerged as a recurring theme. According to figures presented at the conference, some 1,800 healthcare workers have been killed since October 2023, with 319 health workers currently detained by Israeli occupation forces. Ashraf spoke of being trained to deal with crises, but never having faced anything like this current situation, with no medical supplies reaching Gaza.
Sabbah detailed how the starvation of Gaza is being systematically engineered. To buy vegetables in northern Gaza now costs hundreds of dollars, she explained. “It’s not a famine,” she emphasised. “It’s manufactured starvation by Israel.”
“I’m not asking western leaders to see us as humans,” Najjar stated in his closing remarks. “Stop pretending, stop lecturing. We see through your hypocrisy. You think you can erase us – you will not, you will fail.”
The testimonies presented paint a harrowing picture of systematic destruction aimed at making Gaza uninhabitable. Speakers emphasised that while mainstream media attention has shifted elsewhere, the situation in northern Gaza continues to deteriorate, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing what the UN has described as catastrophic hunger.
The evidence presented of British military support for Israel’s campaign comes as legal experts increasingly warn that Israel’s actions constitute genocide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently investigating genocide charges against Israel following South Africa’s legal action, while the UN’s recent report found Israel’s military actions in Gaza to be consistent with genocidal intent. Amnesty International has joined a growing chorus of human rights organisations in concluding that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide.
The press conference highlighted how Israel’s media blackout serves to conceal the scale of destruction in Gaza from international scrutiny. Through harrowing firsthand testimonies, damning evidence of British military support and documented accounts of systematic starvation and medical deprivation, the event provided a devastating glimpse of the genocide unfolding in Gaza.
The article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Overview of the courtroom at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on 22 April, 2024 [Selman Aksünger/Anadolu Agency]
Ireland will formally join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel following government approval and will be asking the Court to “broaden its interpretation” of what constitutes genocide, the nation’s Foreign Minister said Wednesday, Anadolu Agency reports.
Ireland will join the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague this month, Micheal Martin said in a statement.
“There has been a collective punishment of the Palestinian people through the intent and impact of military actions of Israel in Gaza, leaving 44,000 dead and millions of civilians displaced,” Martin said following Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting.
He stressed that, by legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Dublin will also be asking the ICJ to “broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State”.
“We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised,” underlined Martin.
He went on to say that Ireland’s view of the Convention is broader and prioritises the protection of civilian life as the government will promote that interpretation in its intervention in this case.
Martin added that the government has also approved joining Gambia’s case against Myanmar under the same convention.
In October 2023, Israel launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that has so far killed over 44,800 people, mostly women and children, and now faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.
Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
