APA-Pretoria (South Africa) South Africa’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has said Israel’s “self-defence reasoning” of his country’s presentation of a genocide case against Tel Aviv before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague in the Netherlands was “a failure in disproving” Pretoria’s contention that it had committed genocidal acts against Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip for the past three months.
Lamola said this on Friday during a press conference held after Israel rebutted Pretoria’s legal team presentation which was made on Thursday.
According to the minister, Israel failed to disprove South Africa’s stand on the laws and facts regarding Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
Lamola said statements made by senior Israeli politicians and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incited attacks on Palestinians, and the Israel legal team argued that these statements by the Israeli leaders were “merely rhetorical.”
“South Africa’s case before this court is a simple one. Under the Genocide Convention nothing justifies genocidal acts currently being committed by Israel,” Lamola told reporters.
He added: “Self-defence is no answer to genocide. There is no balancing exercise Israel has sought to suggest otherwise. The prohibition is absolute.”
The minister said Israel had dismally failed to say that certain words were rhetoric and certain action can be minimised by the fact that they had allowed humanitarian aid.
“We all know there was no such aid. The organs of the UN have stated as such. It’s not South Africa saying this nor anyone. The UN says they can’t provide humanitarian aid because of the ongoing bombings,” he said.
He said he was confident that the court had heard compelling facts from South Africa and the law was on Pretoria’s side.
“The jurisprudence of the court has been very clear that, there cannot be any justification for genocide,” Lamola said.
NM/jn/APA