'Taking Measures To Minimize Harm To Gaza Civilians': Israel Denies Charges Of Genocide At ICJ Hearing

The third round of hearings were focused on emergency measures requested by South Africa, which says Israel's military incursion in the southern city of Rafah threatens the “very survival of Palestinians in Gaza” and has asked the International Court of Justice to order a cease-fire.

Tamar Kaplan-Tourgeman, a member of Israel's legal team, said that Israel had let in fuel and medicine to the troubled area as she defended the country's actions.

“Israel takes extraordinary measures in order to minimize the harm to civilians in Gaza,” she told The Hague-based court.

A protester shouting “Liars" briefly interrupted Kaplan-Tourgeman's final remarks. The hearing was paused for less than a minute while security guards escorted a woman from the public gallery.

South Africa told the court on Thursday that the situation in Palestine has reached “a new and horrific stage” and urged judges to order a half to Israeli military operations.

According to the latest request, South Africa says Israel's military incursion in Rafah threatens the “very survival of Palestinians in Gaza.”

In January, judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive. Judges will now deliberate on the request and are expected to issue a decision in the next weeks.

ICJ judges have broad powers to order a cease-fire and other measures, though the court doesn't have its own enforcement apparatus. A 2022 order by the court demanding that Russia halt its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has so far gone unheeded.

Most of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have been displaced since fighting began.

The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, Gaza's Health Ministry says, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants in its count.

South Africa initiated proceedings in December 2023 and sees the legal campaign as rooted in issues central to its identity. Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel's policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands.” Apartheid ended in 1994.

(With AP inputs)