The St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines gov­ern­ment says it “un­equiv­o­cal­ly sup­ports” South Africa that has filed a com­plaint against Is­rael at the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ), while re­it­er­at­ing a de­mand for a cease­fire in the on­go­ing bat­tle in the Gaza.

The ICJ is ex­pect­ed to hear a re­sponse from Is­rael lat­er on Fri­day af­ter South Africa out­lined its geno­cide case on Thurs­day, with sev­er­al coun­tries wel­com­ing the move amid a glob­al cho­rus for a cease­fire in Gaza.

Is­rael has ve­he­ment­ly de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tions brought by South Africa in one of the biggest cas­es ever to come be­fore an in­ter­na­tion­al court, one that has drawn in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion and pro­test­ers from both sides to the cour­t­house.

The 84-page fil­ing by South Africa says Is­rael vi­o­lat­ed the `1948 Geno­cide Con­ven­tion, drawn up in the af­ter­math of World War II and the Holo­caust.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, South Africa is urg­ing the ICJ to make rel­e­vant Or­ders un­der the Pro­vi­sion­al Mea­sures of Court to stop the Is­raeli ag­gres­sion, and to pre­vent any fur­ther acts of geno­cide against the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple in the Gaza strip.

”The Gov­ern­ment of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines un­equiv­o­cal­ly sup­ports the ini­tia­tive of South Africa, and again re­it­er­ates the just de­mand for a cease fire. In­ter­na­tion­al law and el­e­men­tal hu­man­i­ty ought to pre­vail over bar­barism, geno­cide, and a wan­ton abuse of mil­i­tary might.

”St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines al­so calls for a ces­sa­tion of ma­te­r­i­al sup­port and suc­cour for Is­rael in Gaza pro­vid­ed by some gov­ern­ments. Those who con­tin­ue to do so are com­plic­it in geno­cide be­fore our very eyes,” Kingstown said in its state­ment.

It said the acts in the com­plaint against is­rael oc­curred dur­ing the 93 days of sus­tained state vi­o­lence against chil­dren, women, and in­no­cent civil­ians; the de­struc­tion of hos­pi­tals, schools, hous­es, and civil­ian fa­cil­i­ties; and the in­ten­tion­al us­age of star­va­tion, and de­pri­va­tion of wa­ter, med­i­cine, elec­tric­i­ty, and all oth­er vi­tal means of life.

Both Is­rael and South Africa are sig­na­to­ries to the Unit­ed Na­tions Geno­cide Con­ven­tion, which gives the ICJ – the high­est UN le­gal body – ju­ris­dic­tion to rule on dis­putes over the treaty.

All states that signed the con­ven­tion are oblig­ed to not com­mit geno­cide and al­so to pre­vent and pun­ish it. The treaty de­fines geno­cide as “acts com­mit­ted with in­tent to de­stroy, in whole or in part, a na­tion­al, eth­ni­cal, racial or re­li­gious group”.

Is­rael has de­fend­ed its ac­tions in Gaza, where it launched a mas­sive air and ground as­sault af­ter Hamas mil­i­tants crossed in­to Is­rael on Oc­to­ber 7 last year, storm­ing through com­mu­ni­ties and killing an es­ti­mat­ed 1,200 peo­ple, main­ly civil­ians. The as­sailants al­so ab­duct­ed around 250 peo­ple, over half of whom are still held cap­tive.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vin­cent, Jan 12, CMC

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