In October 2024, about 50 people, including Koebra Najjar and Erika Mohr-Holland, gathered outside the Western Cape High Court to show support for South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice on genocide in Gaza.
- The UN has confirmed famine in Gaza, 18 months after South Africa warned the world at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that a genocide was unfolding.
- In January 2024 the ICJ found a plausible case for genocide and ordered provisional measures to be taken by Israel, including ensuring humanitarian aid reaches Gaza’s civilians.
- There have been calls for South Africa to return to the ICJ to demand further measures as the situation deteriorates in Gaza.
- DIRCO director-general Zane Dangor says South Africa will approach the UN General Assembly and Security Council “in the next couple of weeks” for enforcement of the existing ICJ measures.
In March 2024, when South Africa yet again approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with concerns that a genocide was unfolding in Gaza, it warned that time was running out for the people of the enclave.
South Africa had brought an urgent application to strengthen provisional binding orders already made by the ICJ in January 2024. These included that Israel take “immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address famine and starvation and the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians”.
Instead, Israel has been blocking aid from reaching Gaza, says the UN.
Now, 18 months later, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has confirmed famine in Gaza. Hundreds of people, many of them children, have already starved to death in the Palestinian enclave.
“The impact is visible: one in five babies are born prematurely or underweight,” reads the IPC report.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it is “a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself.”
What next for South Africa’s case
Zane Dangor, director-general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), says they had predicted the famine in Gaza.
“[The ICJ] ordered them [Israel] to ensure that humanitarian aid comes in unhindered, and these orders were all ignored,” he said.
South Africa initially took Israel to the ICJ in December 2023 over its actions in Gaza. A final decision on whether Israel breached the Genocide Convention could take years, but in January 2024, 15 of the 17 judges at the ICJ found there is a plausible case that Israel’s actions could amount to genocide.
The ICJ ordered Israel to take actions to prevent genocide and issued six provisional measures, including that it ensure the provision of aid to Gaza.
In March 2024, South Africa approached the court for an urgent application for these provisional measures to be strengthened to “prevent a catastrophic famine in the Gaza Strip”.
In May 2024, South Africa returned to the ICJ to ask for additional measures. The court ordered Israel to halt any further military action in Rafah.
Responding to calls for South Africa to go back to the ICJ for further provisional measures, Dangor said it was “weighed up” but the decision was to focus on the enforcement of the existing orders from the ICJ.
“There are provisions in the charter of the UN that allow us to go to the Security Council to argue for enforcement. The existing provisional orders still stand,” said Dangor.
“We are now putting in place the steps to go to the Security Council and using the provisions in the charter to get the Security Council to first do its duty to make sure there’s enforcement. And if that fails because of a veto by the US, it has to be escalated to the General Assembly.”
“We will be approaching the General Assembly in the next couple of weeks to ensure that we get more action,” he told GroundUp.
More countries join ICJ case
“Most of the most powerful countries internationally were initially very hostile to what we were doing. Then they accepted what we were doing,” said Dangor.
He welcomed Brazil’s intent to join the ICJ case.
Having one of the largest Latin American countries, both “geopolitically and economically, to join is important”, he said.
“We need to look at all the strategies available to us as a government working with others, to stop this genocide.”
“We’re collecting data all the time, and we’ve got three public dossiers that we’ve given to the UN.”
“Genocide can be difficult to prove, but in this case, it’s not. The special intent is there all the time, and it’s just becoming clearer to those who are skeptics as well.”
“In the US, I think there is a sense that if this continues, the chances of Israel being found guilty of breaching the genocide convention are strong, which also then raises the concerns that they and others have of being complicit in genocide,” Dangor said.
Unfolding genocide
On 28 October 2024, South Africa filed its memorial to the ICJ, in its case on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Israel was given a deadline to file its counter-memorials by 28 July 2025, but it approached the court in April for an extension until 12 January 2026. This process means it is unlikely that there will be a full judgment for a number of years. But it is not unusual for cases of this nature to take years.
“What is happening now with the famine deepening is that even within the US administration, there’s a sense that this has to stop,” said Dangor.
“We are using the provisional orders to ensure that we put as much pressure on Israel and those who support them to end the genocide. I have to emphasise that the accountability and the justice component is important, but the prevention component is perhaps more important,” he said.
Dr Nimer Sultany, Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London, said the more countries join South Africa’s case, the better, as it would “strengthen the world court under conditions of unprecedented attacks on international justice mechanisms. The genocide case is important for all states as it will determine whether the Genocide Convention is a live instrument that serves its purpose of preventing and punishing genocide or if it is a dead letter.”
He said it was unsurprising that Israel was delaying proceedings.
“The priority at this stage is attempting to end the atrocities through the instrument of provisional measures,” said Sultany.
He added that while South Africa made a “brave decision in December 2023”, it was “disappointing” that they had not gone back for more provisional orders.
On Sunday, NPR reported that Israel’s military takeover of Gaza City had begun. This was despite the International Red Cross and the UN warning of an “impending catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip.
“It is disappointing that South Africa is not submitting a request now to try to prevent Israel from destroying Gaza City,” said Sultany.
“These requests for provisional measures are necessary to activate the prevention element of the Genocide Convention. They challenge the world court to fulfil its duties. They also help South Africa win the case ultimately, because they will add to the mounting evidence before the court of Israel violating its orders to prevent genocide,” he said.
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Lack of libraries: Limited access to educational and recreational resources.
Freak
Oke / Ou – guy [oak] / [oh] South Africa’s most common word for a man or guy and is similar in meaning to ‘china’, ‘bru’ or ‘boet’.
DZE
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”