The Advocates Network, supported by the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC), has called on the prime minister and the government, to support the South Africa’s claim against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). CARICOM governments were also called upon to do the same.
The Government of South Africa alleges Israel’s actions in Gaza since early October amount to genocide.
The claim states Israel has “committed and has failed to prevent genocidal acts through killings, physical and mental harm, and the imposition of conditions intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group.
“Israeli forces have so far killed 24,000 Palestinians, including a reported 70 per cent being women and children, and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.”
Further, South Africa presented the ICJ with evidence in support of its claim that Israel’s Gaza military assault having surpassed a war with Hamas — the Palestinian militant group that killed 1,200 and kidnapped 240 Israeli citizens — is now an armed offensive against the 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza.
South Africa has asked the ICJ to urgently prevent Israel from committing further crimes against the people of Gaza using “provisional measures to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention, which Israel continues to violate with impunity.”
More than 50 countries worldwide, including CARICOM members, Guyana, and St. Vincent, officially support South Africa’s legal initiative against Israel.
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