Netherlands, Iceland join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at ICJ

Iceland argued that genocide as a motive can be considered even when other motives exist.

By Dinah Bucholz, Jewish Breaking News

The International Court of Justice announced Thursday that the Netherlands and Iceland had joined South Africa’s case against Israel, accusing it of genocide, which South Africa had presented to the court in December 2023.

Both countries, as signatories to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, can file interventions to join a court case.

To prove genocide, the high bar of special intent, called dolus specialis, has to be cleared.

However, the Netherlands argued that particular actions on their own can prove the intent to commit genocide.

These actions, it argued, include forced displacement, blocking humanitarian aid, starvation and acts targeting children.

The Netherlands said that acts targeting children can play a special role in determining intent.

In Iceland’s separate filing, the country argued for expanding the definition of intent to situations where genocide is not the only possible explanation for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Iceland argued that genocide as a motive can be considered even when other motives exist. This means that genocide can be broadly applied, diluting its meaning.

The Netherlands and Iceland submitted their filings on Wednesday.

Neither country offered an explanation for how the following actions taken by the IDF fit their conception of genocide:

Israel has dropped hundreds of thousands of munitions on Gaza, resulting in a small fraction of people killed per strike, even though each bomb can kill hundreds of people.

According to the U.N. and Doctors Without Borders, the IDF has destroyed 70% of all structures and 92% of all residential buildings. Thus, Israel has flattened nearly all the homes in Gaza; but at the same time, it has kept nearly the whole population alive.

According to the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Israel has facilitated well over 2 million tons of total aid (food, medical supplies, shelter equipment, etc.) since the beginning of the war — more than one ton of aid per person, unprecedented in all of war history.

After a polio outbreak in Gaza, Israel vaccinated the child population for polio during wartime.

Israel has evacuated areas before strikes with millions of leaflets, phone calls and text messages.

Israel has sacrificed the military advantage of the element of surprise by broadcasting maps of its movements so civilians will know where to go.

The total number of Palestinians killed in alleged war crimes, both verified and unverified, is 51, according to a study from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, which also says that there is no forensic evidence of massacres.

Israel has made it crystal clear that Hamas can end the war at any moment by giving up its arms and the hostages.

Israeli leaders and spokespeople keep repeating the mantra, “For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy; for Hamas, it is a strategy.”