RSS
Citing the Holocaust, Israel offers rebuttal to South Africa’s genocide charges at the International Court of Justice
(JTA) — Lawyers for Israel put forth their rebuttal to South Africa’s charge that it was committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and said the case before the International Court of Justice cheapened a term that was coined to describe the destruction of the Jewish people.
The case made by lawyers for Israel on Friday addressed both prongs of the argument South Africa made the day before, coupling Israel’s methods, which are destroying large swaths of Gaza, with statements by Israeli leaders that South Africa says establish intent to commit genocide.
But Israel also advanced an overarching argument that the court should not abuse a term, genocide, reserved only for the most extreme cases.
“Yes, there is a heart-wrenching armed conflict, but the attempt to classify it as genocide and trigger provisional measures is not just unfounded in law, it has far reaching and negative implications that extend well beyond the case before you,” Gilad Noam, Israel’s deputy attorney general, told the court.
“Ultimately entertaining the applicant’s request would not strengthen the commitment to prevent and punish genocide but weaken it,” he said. “It will turn an instrument adopted by the international community to prevent horrors of the kind that shocked the conscience of humanity during the Holocaust into a weapon in the hands of terrorist groups who have no regard for humanity or for the law.”
The statute under international law allowing for the court’s adjudication of genocide was composed in the wake of the Holocaust.
Tal Becker, a legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, noted the term’s origins, coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer.
Lemkin, Becker said, “helped the world recognize that the existing legal lexicon was simply inadequate to capture the devastating evil that the Nazi Holocaust unleashed.” Now, he said, South Africa was seeking to turn the term inside out.
“The attempt to weaponize the term genocide against Israel in the present context does more than tell the court a grossly distorted story, it does more than empty the word of its unique force and special meaning, it subverts the object and purpose of the [genocide] convention itself,” he said.
Israel has argued that Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion that launched the war — when terrorists invaded from Gaza and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, brutalized thousands more and took more than 240 people hostage — better fits the term “genocide.” Becker noted the presence in the courtroom of families of some of the more than 100 people who remain hostages.
More than 23,000 Palestinians — 1% of the strip’s population — including thousands of children, have been killed since Israel launched counterstrikes, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said. Israel has said in the past that a third of the dead are combatants.
Friday’s arguments at the court in The Hague are a preliminary stage of the case, which may take years to decide. The next step is for the 15-judge panel to determine whether to order a full or partial halt to the fighting, if it finds the risk of genocide credible. The court cannot enforce such an order, but it could provide a legal predicate for nations to boycott or isolate Israel
A factor driving Israeli outrage at the proceedings — so much so that the country has reversed a longstanding policy of ignoring United Nations-affiliated bodies — has been that a country founded in the ashes of the destruction of its people should face the charge of genocide.
“A terrorist organization carried out the worst crime against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and now someone comes to defend it in the name of the Holocaust,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Israel’s lawyers also said the breadth and methods of Israel’s counterattacks did not deviate from the laws of war and instead show that Israel is not intent on killing Palestinians en masse.
Galit Raguan, a legal adviser at Israel’s Justice Ministry, noted the measures Israel had taken to facilitate the entry of assistance into the strip, to warn civilians of impending attacks and to facilitate their evacuation. “The charge of genocide in the face of these extensive efforts is frankly untenable,” she said.
She listed a number of actions Israel has taken, including the allowing in of food and water, and medicines and medical equipment — an accounting that she said was far from comprehensive. She said the list showed that the evidence underlying the genocide charge is”tendentious and partial” and that “the allegation of the intent to commit genocide is baseless.”
She added, “If Israel had such intent would it delay a ground maneuver for weeks, urging civilians to seek safer space and in doing so sacrificing operational advantage?”
Israel’s critics say the country has frustrated the delivery of relief to Gaza Palestinians. Israel blames international aid groups for haplessness and Hamas for stealing the food and equipment. World health agencies say Gaza is on the verge of starvation.
Malcolm Shaw, a British barrister who specializes in human rights and who is leading the Israeli team, referred to quotes by Israeli officials that South Africa said signaled genocidal intent. Shaw said the citations were ripped from context or were made by officials who are not part of the decision-making process.
He noted, for instance, South Africa’s citation of comments by Israel’s minister of heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, who said “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and who fantasized about a flattened Gaza as “beautiful” and recommended nuking the strip.
Eliyahu, Shaw noted, “is completely outside the policy and decision making of the war. In any event, his statement was immediately repudiated by members of the war cabinet and other ministers, including the prime minister.” Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from Cabinet meetings because of his remarks.
Shaw noted that the war was run by a small coterie of officials, and said South Africa ignored multiple statements by those officials upholding the protections of civilians, including Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“The prime minister stated time and again, ‘We must prevent a humanitarian disaster, ‘” Shaw said.
—
The post Citing the Holocaust, Israel offers rebuttal to South Africa’s genocide charges at the International Court of Justice appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike
Picture said to show leader of Hamas’s military wing, known as Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif in a location given as Gaza Strip in this handout picture released on Jan. 7, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas officially confirmed on Thursday that its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was killed during the Gaza war, almost six months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported his death.
Deif, the architect of Hamas’s military capabilities, is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — which sparked the Gaza war.
Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesperson, also reported the deaths of Deif’s deputy, Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa Salama, as well as senior operatives Marwan Issa, Ghazi Abu Tama’a, Raad Thabet, Ahmed Ghandour, and Ayman Nofal.
According to the IDF, Deif was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 13 of last year.
Following weeks of intelligence assessments, Israeli authorities gathered evidence to confirm Deif’s death before publicly announcing it in early August.
“IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and … it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,” the military said. “His elimination serves the objectives of the war and demonstrates Israel’s ability to carry out targeted strikes with precision.”
At the time, Hamas neither confirmed nor denied Deif’s death, but one official, Ezzat Rashaq, stated that any announcements regarding the deaths of its leaders would be made solely by the organization.
“Unless either of them [the Hamas political and military leadership] announces it, no news published in the media or by any other parties can be confirmed,” Rashaq said.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Deif, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Deif is believed to have collaborated closely with the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, managing military operations and coordinating with the group’s top commanders throughout the conflict.
After Deif’s assassination, then-defense minister Gallant posted an image on social media praising the Israeli military’s accomplishment.
“The assassination of mass murderer Mohammed Deif — ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’ — is a major step toward dismantling Hamas as a military and governing entity, and achieving the war’s objectives,” he said.
The post Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free
Oran Almog, right, addressing the UN Security Council next to Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on July 25, 2017. Photo: Screenshot
While the release of three Israeli hostages on Thursday brought relief and elation across Israel, it also triggered a wave of mixed emotions, especially among victims who saw the terrorists responsible for their suffering set free. One of them is Oran Almog, who was just ten years old when a Palestinian terrorist disguised as a pregnant woman blew up the restaurant he was in, killing five members of his family and leaving him blind.
Yet, while Thursday’s release of Sami Jaradat — the mastermind behind the October 2003 massacre of Almog’s family — was a deeply personal blow, the return of hostages remained a necessary step, he said.
“That the terrorist who killed my family will find himself free is deeply painful, heartbreaking even,” he told The Algemeiner. “But at the same time, I know that even today — especially today — I must set aside my personal pain and focus on the significance of this deal. And the significance is clear. We are getting our hostages home, and that is the only thing that matters.”
Almog’s father, Moshe Almog, his younger brother, Tomer, his grandparents Admiral (res.) Ze’ev and Ruth Almog, and his cousin, Asaf, were murdered when the suicide bomber, Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old lawyer from Jenin, managed to get past the security guard of the Maxim restaurant — jointly owned by a Jewish Israeli and an Arab Israeli — and blow herself up. Sixteen other people were also murdered in the attack, among them four children. Almog lost his eyesight, and his mother, sister, and aunt were among the 60 injured Israelis.
“Sami Jaradat’s continued imprisonment will never bring my family back, but his release can bring the hostages back home alive,” Almog explained.
Emotional meeting between Agam Berger and her family at Beilinson Hospital in Israel. Photo: Haim Zach (GPO)
Almog knows firsthand what it means to be on the receiving end of a hostage-prisoner exchange.
Just two weeks after marking the 20th anniversary of the Maxim restaurant attack, another tragedy struck his family. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Nadav and Yam and abducted Chen, Agam, Gal, and Tal from the Almog-Goldstein family in Kfar Azza.
Fifty-one days later, in November 2023, they were released from Hamas captivity in a temporary ceasefire deal.
Under the current ceasefire agreement reached earlier this month, Hamas will release a total 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, according to the terrorist group. In exchange, Israel will free over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving multiple life sentences on terrorism offenses. Thursday saw the release of three Israelis — including IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger, 20, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80 — and five Thai nationals, who were working in Israeli kibbutzim when they were abducted.
“This is a bad deal, very bad, but the alternative is that much worse,” Almog said. “We must look ahead, put today aside, and recognize that releasing prisoners serves a greater purpose.”
However, Almog expressed hope that Israel would move toward a more decisive and uncompromising approach in its fight against terrorism.
“I sincerely hope that as a country, we will have the wisdom to decisively thwart terrorism,” he said, emphasizing the need to break free from the ongoing cycle of prisoner exchanges.
“I don’t want us to find ourselves trapped in a cycle of releasing terrorists, only for them to return to terror, and then repeat the process again and again,” he added.
Almog has previously addressed the UN Security Council, urging action against the so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme, in which terrorists and their families receive monthly stipends from the Palestinian Authority. The terrorist behind the murder of Almog’s family received $3,000 a month while behind bars, making him almost a millionaire by the time of his release.
Still, Almog concluded with a deeply uplifting message for the returning hostages, confident that they would have a chance at a good life, drawing from his own experiences since the terror attack.
Oran Almog. Photo: Facebook
After his release from the hospital, he began a long rehabilitation process, culminating in third place at the World Blind Sailing Championship with Etgarim, a nonprofit founded by disabled veterans and rehabilitation experts, and supported by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). He was chosen to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the state and, despite his disability, insisted on enlisting in the IDF, serving in an elite unit. Today, he is a managing partner at a financial technology fund, works with Etgarim, and shares his story globally through lectures.
“I know the hostages will be able to return, to live, and to live well. With enough support — and a great deal of willpower — it is truly possible to rebuild life, even after the deepest catastrophes,” he said.
The post ‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Pro-Israel Lawmaker Randy Fine Wins Florida GOP Primary, Favorite to Replace Trump Adviser Mike Waltz in Congress
Florida state Sen. Randy Fine. Photo: Reuters
Florida state Sen. Randy Fine emerged victorious on Tuesday in the Republican primary election for the Sunshine State’s 6th Congressional District in the US Congress, making the firebrand conservative the overwhelming favorite to secure the highly-coveted seat to replace now-former Rep. Mike Waltz.
The congressional seat became vacant after Waltz stepped down to become the national security adviser for US President Donald Trump in the White House. Waltz had managed to secure reelection in November with 66 percent of the vote.
Fine, who is Jewish, has established himself as a stalwart ally of Israel. In the year following the Hamas-led slaughter of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages during a cross-border invasion into southern Israel, Fine has spearheaded efforts to uproot antisemitism within the state of Florida.
In August 2024, he chided Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for taking a trip to Ireland, repudiating the country as “antisemitic.”
“I was certainly disappointed to see not only folks go to what is clearly an antisemitic country that supports Muslim terror, but I was also disappointed that the game wasn’t cancelled, which it should have been,” Fine said.
Ireland has been a fierce critic of Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, even joining a legal case brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice accusing the Jewish state of genocide in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The move, which came after the Irish government in May officially recognized a Palestinian state, led Israel to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
In August 2024, Fine launched an investigation into alleged antisemitic and pro-terrorist ideology within instructional materials at Florida public universities. Fine suggested that activist professors were using textbooks that were indoctrinating students with anti-Israel sentiment.
“When we learned that Florida universities were using a factually inaccurate, openly antisemitic textbook, we realized there was a problem that had to be addressed,” Fine said.
Following the New Year’s Day ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans, Fine raised eyebrows by repudiating Islam as a “fundamentally broken and dangerous culture.”
“Muslim terror has attacked the United States — again. The blood is on the hands of those who refuse to acknowledge the worldwide #MuslimProblem. It is high time to deal with this fundamentally broken and dangerous culture,” Fine posted on X/Twitter.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US congratulated Fine for his primary victory on Tuesday.
“We are proud to support pro-Israel candidates who help strengthen and expand the US-Israel relationship. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics,” AIPAC, which endorsed Fine, posted on social media.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), an organization that attempts to forge closer ties between the Jewish community and the Republican Party, touted Fine’s vigorous crusade against antisemitism within the Florida state legislature.
“Randy Fine is a warrior for his constituents and has served for years in the Florida legislature with distinction,” RJC wrote on X/Twitter. “Randy Fine will be a fierce advocate for the Jewish community in the House of Representatives. Importantly, he has led the fight and been the loudest voice against the rise of antisemitism in Florida and across the country.”
The post Pro-Israel Lawmaker Randy Fine Wins Florida GOP Primary, Favorite to Replace Trump Adviser Mike Waltz in Congress first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login