Top UN court to rule on landmark Israel Gaza genocide case

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The top UN court hands down an initial decision Friday in a case against Israel over alleged genocide in Gaza, a landmark ruling closely watched in the Middle East and around the world.

The International Court of Justice could order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza, sparked by the unprecedented October 7 attacks by Hamas, or to facilitate humanitarian aid.

The court will not however pass judgement on whether or not Israel is actually committing genocide in Gaza.

At this stage, the ICJ will hand down emergency orders before considering the wider accusation of genocidal acts in Gaza -- a process that will likely take years.

The case has been brought by South Africa, which says that Israel is in breach of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, set up in the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust.

"South Africa does not need to prove that Israel is committing genocide," said Juliette McIntyre, international law expert from the University of South Australia.

"They simply need to establish that there is a plausible risk of genocide occurring," she told AFP.

Over two days of hearings earlier this month in the gilded halls of the Peace Palace in the Hague, a world away from the violence in Israel and Gaza, robed lawyers argued over the technicalities of the Genocide Convention.

"Genocides are never declared in advance," declared Adila Hassim, a top lawyer for South Africa.

"But this Court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts," she added.

The case has sparked fury in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that "the world is upside down".

Israel's lawyer Tal Becker dismissed Pretoria's case as a "profoundly distorted factual and legal picture" and a "decontextualised and manipulative description of the reality" on the ground.

Showing the court images of the brutal Hamas attack, Becker said that "if there have been acts that may be characterised as genocidal, then they have been perpetrated against Israel".

Becker denied that Israel's operations were aimed at the citizens of Gaza. The army's