Above photo: Remko de Waal/ AFP.
Ireland is the latest country to join South Africa in attempting to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice.
Ireland has submitted a declaration to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.
“Ireland, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” or South Africa versus Israel, the ICJ said in a statement on 7 January.
Under Article 63, any state party to a convention that is under judicial consideration has the right to intervene, making the ICJ’s interpretation of that convention binding on them as well.
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin announced in December his government would join the ICJ case.
Israel closed its embassy in Dublin in response, while the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, described Ireland’s Prime Minister, Simon Harris, as antisemitic.
Harris responded by saying, “You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible. You know what I think is reprehensible? Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza. You know what I think is reprehensible? People are being left to starve, and humanitarian aid is not flowing.”
US-Palestinian entrepreneur and art curator Faisal Saleh said he has begun efforts to lease the closed Israeli embassy building and convert it into a Palestinian museum.
“This will be a very powerful symbolic move where Palestinian art replaces the genocidal entity representation in Ireland,” Saleh told Anadolu Ajansi on 3 January.
Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, placing the strip under total siege and unleashing a horrific bombing campaign targeting Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters alike.
In December of that year, South Africa filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel, claiming its actions in Gaza were in violation of the Genocide Convention.
Several countries have since joined the case, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, and Turkiye.
In fifteen months of war, Israeli forces have killed over 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, while injuring over 105,000.
The campaign has laid waste to much of the enclave, including homes, mosques, schools, hospitals, universities, agricultural land, and water infrastructure, making Gaza largely unlivable.
Israeli soldiers and politicians have declared it their goal to forcibly expel all 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and to build Jewish settlements on the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian cities and refugee camps.