Campaign in support of South Africa's genocide case against Israel garners more than 320,000 signatures

People raise flags and placards as they celebrate a landmark “genocide” case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice, in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on January 10, 2024 [MARCO LONGARI/AFP via Getty Images]

A campaign in support of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has gathered thousands of signatures Wednesday, Anadolu Agency reports.

The initiative, launched from the UK on the change.org website, saw participation from more than 320,000 users worldwide, as of 7 pm Turkish local time.

The campaign expressed solidarity with South Africa’s case and hoped it would end the suffering of Gazans.

The UN General Assembly asked last month for an opinion from the ICJ on the legal status and consequences arising from Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Territory.

South Africa filed the lawsuit 29 December, claiming that Israel violated the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide with its actions in Gaza since 7 October, requesting an injunction.

Hearings in the case are set to take place at The Hague from Thursday.

Turkiye, Bolivia and Malaysia have already signalled support for the case.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the world’s second-largest multi-national bloc, also welcomed the request filed by South Africa.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas, on 7 October, killing at least 23,210 Palestinians, and injuring 59,167 others, mostly women and children, according to health authorities.

Around 1,200 Israelis believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

READ: Despair in Gaza as fighting intensifies despite Israel promise to scale back war

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.