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The head of the top United Nations court on Friday began reading the initial decision in the case against Israel over alleged genocide in Gaza, a landmark case that has sparked global interest.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) could in theory order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza, sparked by the October 7 attacks by Hamas, or to facilitate humanitarian aid.
The court is not however passing judgement on whether or not Israel is actually committing genocide in Gaza.
At this stage, the ICJ is weighing emergency orders while it considers the wider accusation of genocidal acts in Gaza — a process likely to take years.
South Africa has brought the case, accusing Israel of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, set up in the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust.
Pretoria “does not need to prove that Israel is committing genocide,” said Juliette McIntyre, international law expert from the University of South Australia.
“They simply need to establish that there is a plausible risk of genocide occurring,” she told AFP.
Over two days of hearings earlier this month in the gilded halls of the Peace Palace in The Hague, a world away from the violence in Israel and Gaza, robed lawyers battled over the technicalities of the Genocide Convention.
