Israel calls international court of justice case an 'obscene exploitation'

Israel yesterday attacked South Africa's case against it in the international court of justice as an "obscene exploitation" of the genocide convention, claiming that it aimed not to protect Palestinian civilians but to defend Hamas militants.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

Israel's representatives told the court their country was fighting a war of self-defence that it "did not want and did not start". They said Israel made "extraordinary" efforts to protect civilians, and had complied with past orders from the court to let more aid into Gaza.

"There is a tragic conflict going on, but no genocide," the Israeli justice ministry official Gilad Noam told the court. He asked judges to throw out a request from South Africa that asked the court to order a halt to the military offensive in Rafah and impose a ceasefire across Gaza.

The hearing in the Hague came as all G7 countries apart from the US sent a joint letter urging Israel to comply with international law in Gaza and address the devastating humanitarian crisis there, Reuters reported. Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland also signed.

The US has warned that Gaza faces an "imminent famine", and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said this week he had not seen a credible plan to protect civilians in Rafah before a planned Israeli attack.

The population of the city in southern Gaza had swelled to about 1.5 million people over seven months of war as Palestinians fled Israeli ground offensives elsewhere. Now more than 600,000 people have fled north again, but hundreds of thousands of others do not have the means to leave or fear they will not find food or shelter.