In January 2024, South Africa formally accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people before the United Nations’ International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. This same accusation of genocide has been repeated in the news, on social media, and at protests around the world. News articles abound claiming Israel is deliberately targeting civilians and should be blamed for rising death tolls, widespread destruction, and a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

However, lies are often louder than the truth. Proverbs 18:17 reminds us, “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him.” In this article, we will cross examine South Africa’s case against Israel and show why its accusations are unfounded and misleading.

Israel’s Response to Hamas’ Attacks

The Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, 2023, when at least 1,500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants from Gaza broke through 30 points in the border fence into Israel and brutally slaughtered more than 1,200 Jewish Israelis and foreigners and kidnapped more than 240 hostages. Commenting on the attack, the president of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, said:

The horror that I witnessed . . . when I was in Israel in Kfar Azza. Six days before I visited, it was a lively kibbutz with 750 inhabitants. But on 7 October, Hamas came at 6:00 in the morning. I saw burnt-out houses, a baby seat covered with blood, debris, bullet holes, unexploded grenades. It was a ghost town. There was no limit to the blood Hamas terrorists wanted to spill. They went home by home. They burned people alive. They mutilated children and even babies. Why? Because they were Jews. Because they were living in the State of Israel. And Hamas’ explicit goal is to eradicate Jewish life from the Holy Land. These terrorists, supported by their friends in Tehran will never stop. And so, Israel has the right to defend itself in line with humanitarian law. And in the face of this horror, there is only one possible response from democratic nations like us: We stand with Israel.^[1]

In response to Hamas’ vicious massacre on innocent Israeli civilians, Israel has justly gone to war with two aims: to defeat Hamas, the terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction, and to bring back Israeli hostages.^[2] But some, like the country of South Africa, insist Israel’s real aim is to annihilate the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The Charge of Genocide

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish jurist, coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust, the widescale murder of six million Jewish people.^[3] In December 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA), in Resolution 96, officially declared genocide a crime under international law. Two years later, the UNGA met again for the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and defined the crime of genocide:^[4]

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group [emphasis mine], as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.^[5]

This description of genocide, as defined by the Geneva Convention, was the definition the International Court of Justice employed in South Africa’s case against Israel.

South Africa accused Israel of deliberately and methodically targeting civilians in Gaza and attempting to wipe out the Palestinian population. South Africa claimed Israel’s intent of genocide is evidenced by the widespread destruction of Gaza, including many civilian areas; thousands of civilian deaths, including many children; and an ensuing humanitarian crisis. “The scale of destruction in Gaza, the targeting of family homes and civilians, the war being a war on children, all make clear that genocidal intent is both understood and has been put into practice. The articulated intent is the destruction of Palestinian life,” said South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi before the court.^[6]

But South Africa, in its charges, has misrepresented and, in many cases, completely ignored three important aspects of this conflict: Hamas’ military tactics and strategies, Israel’s efforts to diminish civilian harm during operations, and Israel’s efforts to address humanitarian hardships in Gaza despite Hamas’ attempts at obstruction.^[7]

Hamas’ Military Tactics

South Africa claimed the civilian death toll in Gaza proves Israel is systematically committing a genocide of the Palestinian people. The death of any innocent civilian in war is a tragedy, and we should mourn and pray for innocent lives to be protected. However, the death toll cited was provided by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health and failed to differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants as well as those killed by Hamas versus those killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

For example, South Africa failed to mention more than 2,000 rockets fired by Hamas have misfired and indiscriminately landed within Gaza, harming and killing civilians (including the strike on the Al-Ahli Hospital, which Hamas falsely claimed Israel targeted). South Africa also only blamed Israel for the widespread destruction in Gaza, while it failed to mention Hamas booby-trapped and destroyed thousands of buildings. In traditional warfare, forces work to keep civilians far from areas of conflict, but most wars are not fought in such a densely populated urban area like Gaza, which makes combat challenging for Israel. Yet, Israel strategically tries to avoid civilian casualties by advance notice to civilians and by moving them out of conflict zones.

Hamas’ Use of Human Shields

And, most importantly, South Africa and those charging Israel with genocide failed to consider Hamas’ inhumane and unlawful military tactics of embedding itself within its civilian population. Hamas’ hiding within and under critical civilian infrastructure, like hospitals, shows its complete disregard for innocent Palestinian lives. Hamas’ approach to Palestinians in Gaza constitutes war crimes (since the use of human shields violates international law) and turns civilian areas into legitimate military targets.^[8] Commenting on Hamas’ abhorrent and illegal warfare tactics, Tal Becker, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ legal advisor, told the court:

Sadly, the civilian suffering in warfare is not unique to Gaza. What is actually unparalleled and unprecedented is the degree to which Hamas has entrenched itself within the civilian population and made Palestinian civilian suffering an integral part of its strategy. Hamas has systematically and unlawfully embedded its military operations, militants, and assets, throughout Gaza—within and beneath densely populated civilian areas. It has built an extensive warren of underground tunnels for its leaders and fighters, several hundred miles in length, throughout the Strip, with thousands of access points and terrorist hubs located in homes, mosques, UN facilities, schools, and, perhaps, most shockingly, hospitals. This is not an occasional tactic. It is an integrated, pre-planned, extensive, and abhorrent method of warfare, purposely and methodically murdering civilians, firing rockets indiscriminately, systematically using civilian sensitive sites and civilian objects as shields.^[9]

Israel has compiled extensive photo, video, and satellite evidence of Hamas’ use of civilian centers for terror and warfare. In Israel’s official defense proceedings before the court, Galit Rajuan, an Israeli lawyer, provided the court with substantial evidence of Hamas’ use of human shields: photos of projectiles under children’s bedrooms, footage of Hamas militants going into Al-Quds Hospital with rocket-propelled grenades to fire at Israeli soldiers, video footage of militants holding hostages in the basement of Al-Rantisi Hospital directly after October 7, photos of weapons and military rooms in different wings of Al-Shifa Hospital, photo evidence of Hamas bringing hostages into Al-Shifa’s lobby, photos of a Hamas tunnel directly under Al-Shifa, photos of weapons hiding in the incubators of Al-Awda Hospital, and the list goes on.^[10]

At Al-Awda Hospital, eighty Hamas militants were hiding before surrendering to the IDF, and the director of the hospital admitted numerous staff members were Hamas fighters. Israel also discovered Hamas managed operations from the Indonesian Hospital, outside the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza City, and recovered the bodies of five dead hostages from a tunnel under the hospital.^[11]

After detailing and proving Hamas’ use of Palestinians as human shields, Rajuan concluded:

In every single hospital that the IDF has searched in Gaza, it has found evidence of Hamas’ military use. Israel is acutely aware that because of Hamas’ use of hospitals as shields for its military operations—in grave violation of international humanitarian law—patients and staff are at risk. This is why the IDF has reached out to every hospital and offered assistance in relocating patients and staff to safer areas. Hospitals have not been bombed. Rather, the IDF sends soldiers to search and dismantle military infrastructure, reducing damage and destruction. Indeed, the tunnel that sat directly under the main building in Shifa Hospital was exploded without damaging the building above. The IDF then withdrew from the hospital. Yes, damage and harm have occurred as a result of hostilities in [the] hospital’s vicinity, sometimes by IDF fire, sometimes by Hamas, but always as a direct result of Hamas’ abhorrent method of warfare.^[12]

The destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure and the death of civilians—two of South Africa’s main points of “evidence” against Israel to convict it of genocidal intent—are direct results of Hamas’ detestable practice of embedding itself within the civilian population of Gaza. But even while Hamas shows its complete disregard for its own population, Israel has exerted substantial efforts to try to mitigate civilian harm and address the ensuing humanitarian crisis, which we cover in part two of this article series.

South Africa’s accusation of genocide is not only false but misleading in how it ignores Hamas’ own genocidal intent. The true aggressors, those bent on committing genocide, are Hamas—not Israel. Far from waging genocide, Israel is fighting to protect her people from an existential threat. Let us continue to pray for peace in Israel and Gaza, the protection of innocent lives, the defeat of Hamas, the return of the hostages, and for South Africa and the United Nations not to contort justice by accusing Israel of genocide, but to recognize the perpetrators of injustice and genocide, those who committed the atrocities of October 7.

by Jennifer Miles

Read part two here.

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^[1] Ursula von der Leyen, “Speech by President von der Leyen at the Hudson Institute,” The European Commission, October 19, 2023, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/speech_23_5162.

^[2] “The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” The Avalon Project, August 8, 1988, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.

^[3] What Is Genocide?” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed February 26, 2024,  https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide.

^[4] “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” The United Nations, accessed February 19, 2024, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] “South Africa tells the U.N. top court Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” NPR, January 11, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/01/11/1224126552/court-hearings-genocide-charges-israel.

^[7] Galit Rajuan, “Israel defends itself against genocide case brought to ICJ by South Africa,” DW News, January 12, 2024, educational video, 1:45:27- 2:10:48, https://www.youtube.com/live/H6CEKVSjg7o?si=lpzmqg3vsGA2f47K.

^[8] Tal Becker, “Israel defends itself against genocide case brought to ICJ by South Africa,” DW News, January 12, 2024, educational video, 2:03-33:50, https://www.youtube.com/live/H6CEKVSjg7o?si=lpzmqg3vsGA2f47K.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10]   Galit Rajuan, “Israel defends itself against genocide case brought to ICJ by South Africa,” DW News, January 12, 2024, educational video, 1:45:27-2:10:48, https://www.youtube.com/live/H6CEKVSjg7o?si=lpzmqg3vsGA2f47K.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] Ibid.