On Oct. 7, 2023, the Israel-Hamas War began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive surprise assault in and around the Gaza Strip. Most media outlets and think tanks, a group of experts, concluded that Hamas initiated the war to sever the path toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel because such a normalization agreement would isolate Hamas from the Arab world. The conflicts between the two countries have become more complicated and intractable since Israel’s establishment in 1948. After the outbreak of the war, Gaza’s population suffered from severe shortages as Israel cut off supplies of food, water, and fuel to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages, only allowing in a limited level of humanitarian aid, medicines, and fuel.

South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ
South Africa has filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's principal judicial organ, alleging that Israel is engaging in ’genocidal acts’ in Gaza on Dec. 29, 2023. South Africa asked the ICJ to order nine measures, including ceasing military operations. In its evidence submitted, South Africa said Israel's actions were intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group, according to the South African press, The Mail & Guardian.

Under international law, genocide is defined as committing one or more acts to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. According to Israeli press, The News of Israel on Dec. 31, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily rejected South Africa's allegations, saying that who has come to commit genocide is Hamas and the Israeli army is acting as morally as possible in contrast. The Israeli government has repeatedly stated it intends to destroy Hamas, not the Palestinian people.

However, the ICJ issued provisional measures on Jan. 26, 2024, to preserve the rights of the parties ahead of a final decision on the dispute. The court ordered Israel to take a series of measures to prevent potentially genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza. It also ordered Israel to take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of aid to Gaza. South Africa’s prime request for the court was to order Israel to immediately halt operations in Gaza, but the court did not uphold this. The court has not decided on whether or not genocide has been committed as it is likely to take years before a final judgment is reached.

Is it Genocide or Not — Genocidal Intent
Scholars are torn on whether the current conflict can be yet classified as genocide officially. The Chonnam Tribune examined how different perspectives are reported by the foreign press. According to an article on experts’ views about genocide in Gaza in TIME magazine released on Nov. 14, 2023, all scholars who spoke to the magazine say that it is much more likely that both Hamas and some Israeli officials could be found guilty of crimes against humanity.

David Simon, a director of the genocide studies program at Yale University, says that Israel has only explicitly said it wants to eliminate Hamas and has not directly stated its intent to destroy a religious, ethnic, or racial group. Simon says it is possible a court could conclude that either Hamas or some elements of the Israel Defense Force could be found guilty of committing an act of genocide, but it is certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy an ethnic group as such is difficult. In short, experts expect that Israel is more likely to be found guilty of extermination, which does not require proof of a perpetrator's conscious desire to destroy as such because of the difficulty of proving genocidal intent in its acts.

Evidence to Find Israel’s Genocidal Intention
When it comes to intention, Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University, and Penny Green, a professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London spoke their opinions at Al Jazeera reported on Jan. 14, 2024, that in Israel’s case, intention too has been laid bare by an ample amount of evidence – as the South African legal team pointed out. Segal and Green provide a database complied by Law for Palestine, a non-profit human rights organization registered in both the United Kingdom and Sweden, as a comprehensive evidence base to trace the language that drives Israeli genocide. It shows that people with command authority have been making genocidal statements repeatedly since Oct. 7, 2023. They have dehumanized Palestinians in their rhetoric and painted the population in Gaza, as a whole, as Israel’s enemy. One of the statements is Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu's reference to Amalek, an Israeli enemy whose biblical injunction was to kill every man, woman, child, and animal.

In the same vein, it is worth looking at Kenneth Roth’s interview by television broadcast PBS Newshour done on Jan. 11, 2024. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, shared his thoughts about Israel’s guilty issue. He said that there is not much question that the level of killing, the level of deprivation is sufficient to meet that predicate part of the crime of genocide. Roth mentioned the statement by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, "We are fighting against human animals" as he thought the minister said it in the context of justifying a complete siege of Gaza, also including Palestinian civilians. It could contribute to an atmosphere where it is easier for anti-Palestinian individuals and politicians to regard people in Gaza as less than human.

Wishing for Peace in the Middle East
It is shocking that Israel, the state that gave the world the word ”genocide” is being accused of committing genocide. A full judgment from the court, determining whether genocide has occurred in Gaza, will likely take years to emerge. Someday, the war between Israel and Hamas will come to an end. Israelis and Palestinians will need to re-engage in the essential question of what could constitute a peaceful settlement between them. Thousands of people around the world have taken to the streets to protest against the war in Gaza. In South Korea, there has also been a march in front of Seoul Central Masjid, the first mosque in the country, on Oct. 27, 2023, to express their objection to a ground assault in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, as we can never tolerate a situation like this as a world citizen. Thousands marched through the streets of Madrid, Spain to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Feb. 17, 2024. Many carried signs that read “Peace for Palestine” and “Don’t ignore Palestinian suffering.” Global citizenship wants the war to be over and wishes for peace in the Middle East.

By Gim Ye-rin, Reporter