The United States doesn’t believe Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, US officials said on Wednesday as they slammed South Africa’s appeal to the International Court of Justice for a ruling on the matter.
“We find this submission meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “that genocide is of course a heinous atrocity, one of the most heinous atrocities that any individual can commit. “Those are allegations that should not be made lightly, and as it pertains to the United States, we are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide,” he said.
When asked if he believed that crimes against humanity had occurred in Gaza, Miller said, “I don’t have any assessment to make on those.
“We continue to collect information and gather it, as we always do, but I don’t have an assessment to offer.”The ICJ is expected on January 11th and 12 an immediate hearing on the claim that Israel is in violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.
South Africa launched proceedings against Israel
Both South Africa and Israel are signatories to the convention, a fact that allows Pretoria to file a claim against Jerusalem. The signatures also grant the ICJ jurisdiction to hear the case.
Given the clarity regarding jurisdiction, Israel, in an unusual move, has agreed to appear before the court but has yet to name its legal team.
Israel has rejected all claims of genocide, explaining that it is fighting a war to prevent Hamas’s desire to kill the Jewish people as evidenced by its October 7 attack on Israel.
During Hamas’s infiltration into Southern Israel, over 1,200 people were killed and some 250 hostages were seized.
Hamas has asserted that over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the IDF’s military campaign against Hamas. Israel has claimed that over 8,000 of those fatalities were combatants.