Hamas leader praises South Africa for filing genocide lawsuit against Israel at top UN court

The chief of Hamas’ political bureau has thanked South Africa for launching a case against Israel at the United Nations’ top court, outlined in detail in a 84-page long application, in which Pretoria alleges that acts and omissions by Israel in its war waged in the Gaza Strip are genocidal in character.
In a televised address broadcast on Tuesday (2 January), Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh hailed the genocide lawsuit filed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa “against the occupying state for its crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide,” adding that “we appreciate the political and legal importance of this lawsuit.” In its lawsuit, South Africa asserts that the magnitude of death and destruction in Gaza meets the threshold of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Pretoria also asked the ICJ to issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the accusations and promised to fight South Africa genocide accusation at The Hague-based ICJ. “The state of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister, Eylon Levy, said, accusing Pretoria of “giving political and legal cover” to the 7 October Hamas deadly attacks on Israel, which triggered the latest three-month-long war in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We assure South Africa’s leaders, history will judge you, and it will judge you without mercy,” Levy added.