by TINTSWALO BALOYI 
JOHANNESBURG – IT is an unprecedented development in global politics that an African country has sought justice for Palestine amid the genocide committed against by the Western-backed Israel.

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South Africa has stepped in while the so-called global powers and champions of democracy turn a blind eye.

Some of them have been complicit in the aggression that has left thousands of people dead in recent months.

South Africa has filed a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) compelling Israel to immediately halt its genocidal actions in Gaza, where more than 22 000 civilians have been killed in cold blood. Over 58 000 others have been injured while an estimated 1,9 million displaced.

Clayson Monyela, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) spokesperson, confirmed the ICJ case against Israel would be heard between January 11 and 12 at the Hague.

“The ICJ has scheduled a hearing of the case that South Africa has triggered. Our lawyers are currently preparing for this,” Monyela said.

Following South Africa’s filing of its case against Israel, messages of solidarity poured in from across the continent and beyond.

Zimbabwe’s former minister of information, Professor Jonathan Moyo, hailed Pretoria for choosing humanity.

“This is great progress. Well done DIRCO (South Africa). Good job!,” Moyo said.

Anver Ayob remarked, “Fantastic news.”

United States’ law expert, Prof. Francis Boyle, of the University of Illinois College of Law, also charged the Biden administration with aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide and violating the US Genocide Convention Implementation Act.

Boyle stressed the importance of other countries filing Declarations of Intervention with the ICJ in support of the South African application.

He assessed that a South African victory was likely at the ICJ in spite of the presidency of the Court held currently by Joan Donoghue, a former US State Department official.

Boyle wrote books that include The Bosnian People Charge Genocide (1996) Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2009) and World Politics, Human Rights and International Law (2021).

Different publication in the Gaza, Israel and the US reported ICJ could charge Israel with genocide.

Arif Husain, the veteran chief economist at the World Food Programme (WFP), is quoted as saying the ongoing crisis in Gaza exceeds the atrocities in Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.

“I have never seen anything like this, both in terms of its scale, its magnitude, but also at the pace that this has unfolded,” the envoy said.

– CAJ News