Israel tells UN court it has right to press on with assault in Gaza’s Rafah

Rejecting South Africa’s accusations of genocide, Israel claims case makes ‘a mockery of the heinous charge’.

Israel’s lawyers have told the United Nations top court that the country has the right to move ahead with a full-scale offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza to defend itself against Palestinian group Hamas after South Africa filed an urgent request to order a ceasefire as part of a wider case accusing Israel of genocide.

“The fact remains that the city of Rafah also serves as a military stronghold for Hamas, which continues to pose a significant threat to the state of Israel and its citizens,” Gilad Noam, Israel’s deputy attorney general for international law, told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Friday.

Noam accused South Africa of making “a mockery of the heinous charge of genocide”, accusing the country of “adopting a strategy of dragging Israel to court endlessly” and having an “ulterior motive” for urging an Israeli withdrawal from Rafah to obtain “a military advantage for its ally Hamas, which it does not want to see defeated”.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said the hearing had been “unusual”, with a German judge asking Israel to submit a written response to a request for information on humanitarian conditions in its declared “evacuation zones” in Gaza by the following day.

Adding to the “high emotions” at the hearing, a woman had shouted “Liars, liars!” at the Israeli legal representative from the public gallery, said Vaessen.