WASHINGTON, US
The United States on Wednesday criticized South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel before the UN's top court, rejecting accusations against its ally over the war in Gaza.
The International Court of
Justice in The Hague will hold hearings from January 11 to January 12 on a
filing by South Africa that alleges "genocidal acts against the people in
Gaza" and seeks to order Israel to end the military operation.
"This submission is
meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact
whatsoever," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby
told a briefing.
State Department spokesman
Matthew Miller said separately that from a U.S. assessment, "We have not
at this point seen acts that constitute genocide."
"Genocide is, of course,
a heinous atrocity," Miller told reporters. "Those are allegations
that should not make be made lightly."
The court usually takes one or
two weeks to issue a decision on emergency measures after the hearings. The
court's rulings are final but it has no authority to enforce them.
Israel has angrily rejected
the accusation by South Africa, with the foreign ministry calling it
"blood libel," a reference to ancient antisemitic conspiracies.
South Africa has often
criticized Israel and alleged parallels to its own history of apartheid.
In The Hague application,
South Africa says that Israel has been acting "with the requisite specific
intent... to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian
national, racial and ethnical group."
Palestinian Hamas militants
infiltrated Israel on October 7 and killed some 1,140 people, mostly civilians,
according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In response to the deadliest
attack in its history, Israel launched a relentless offensive that has reduced
vast swathes of Gaza to rubble and claimed over 22,300 lives, according to the
health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
U.S. relations with South
Africa have already been shaken over Pretoria's refusal to join Western
pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. ambassador publicly
accused South Africa last year of sending a ship of weapons to Russia, claims
walked back by the State Department.
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