International
Israel rejects accusations of genocide in Gaza war at ICJ hearing
Israel rejects accusations of genocide in Gaza war at ICJ hearing
Israel has rejected the accusations brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide, in a second day of a public hearing at the world body in The Hague.
Israel’s legal representatives on Friday claimed South Africa’s case was “unfounded”, “absurd” and amounting to “libel”, and said Israel sought not to destroy a people but to protect its people.
On Thursday, on the first day of hearings, South Africa argued Israel had committed “systematic” acts of genocide in Gaza, where more than 23,500 Palestinians have been killed amid Israel’s military campaign, with at least 70 percent of whom were women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Israel’s arguments revolved around its “right to self-defence” following the attacks by Hamas on October 7, as well as what it called a lack of evidence of “genocidal intent”.
Christopher Staker, a lawyer representing Israel, said, “The inevitable fatalities and human suffering of any conflict is not of itself a pattern of conduct that plausibly shows genocidal intent.”
Malcolm Shaw, a professor of international law representing Israel, said the case relates only to charges of genocide, which “stands alone among violations of international law as the epitome of evil”. If the charge of genocide is levelled incorrectly, “the essence of this crime would be lost”, he said.
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Shaw added that such evidence was lacking in the arguments South Africa presented a day earlier.
Detailing its evidence on Thursday, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a lawyer for South Africa, said, “The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible.”
‘Massive disconnect’
Israel’s legal representatives insisted its army has acted in compliance with international law in Gaza and aimed to mitigate civilian harm by warning of impending military actions, including via telephone calls and leafleting.
Omri Sender, another lawyer, argued that Israel’s efforts to facilitate humanitarian assistance to people in Gaza testified to its objective of protecting the civilian population, rather than destroying it.
However, Thomas MacManus, a senior lecturer in state crime at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera the ICJ is likely to see a “massive disconnect” between the picture Israel painted of its humanitarian concern for Gaza and “the reality on the ground where UN agencies say people are starving, lacking water, and seeing attacks on hospitals, schools, and universities”.
Speaking before the ICJ hearing, Galit Raguan, acting director of the international justice division at Israel’s Ministry of Justice, refuted the claim that Israel had bombed hospitals. She argued Israel had found evidence of Hamas using “every single hospital in Gaza” for military purposes.
Responding to claims that hospitals were used as military bases, Palestinian foreign ministry official Ammar Hijazi told Al Jazeera outside The Hague that Israel’s arguments were not based in fact or law.
“What Israel has provided today are many of the already debunked lies,” he said.
‘Plausible right to self-defence’
The ICJ is set to rule on nine provisional measures effectively seeking the suspension of military operations in Gaza, but a timeline for when that will happen has not been stated. Israel has argued the provisional measures cannot require a state to refrain from exercising a “plausible right to defend itself”.
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On the issue of jurisdiction, Israel argued that one of the requirements of the ICJ’s mandate is that the state putting forward the case should try to sort out this problem first. According to Israel, they did not manage to talk to South Africa before they brought this case to the court. In turn, South Africa argued it had reached out to Israel but obtained no response.
The Israeli team did make strong “jurisdictional and procedural arguments”, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said, but he added that “Israel lost the moral, factual, historical and humanitarian argument because of the way the situation has unravelled in Gaza – with the sheer death and industrial killing there.”
Tal Becker, the legal adviser of Israel’s foreign ministry, told the ICJ hearing that South Africa enjoyed close relations with Hamas and was therefore attempting to put forward a “distorted factual and legal picture”.
South Africa “firmly rejects” that claim, Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller said, reporting from South Africa.
“The South African government has said that it doesn’t have bilateral relations with Hamas and that its stance in terms of supporting the Palestinian struggle against occupation does not equate to the support of Hamas,” she said.
In its presentation on Thursday, South Africa’s lawyers also condemned Hamas’s actions on October 7.
ICJ President Joan Donoghue ended the two-day hearing saying the court will announce its decision in the coming days.
Israel rejects accusations of genocide in Gaza war at ICJ hearing
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
International
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
The last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by the Israeli military on Friday after dozens of people were reportedly killed in Israeli strikes targeting the area.
Medical staff, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, have also been detained, Gaza health officials said on Saturday.
The hospital director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, was among the first to report that about 50 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital on Friday.
The IDF had said it was carrying out an operation in the area, alleging the hospital was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold”.
On Friday, patients at the hospital were forcibly moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital which doctors warn is damaged and unsuitable due to a lack of power generators and water.
Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan, told the BBC the military had ordered the evacuation around 07:00 on Friday, giving the hospital about 15 minutes to move patients and staff into the courtyard.
Israeli troops then entered the hospital and removed the remaining patients, he said.
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The IDF said it had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” before beginning the operation.
Seriously ill patients were moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, itself evacuated earlier in the week, which medics have described as non-functional.
“You can’t call it a hospital, it’s more of a shelter. It’s not equipped for patients,” Gaza’s deputy minister of health, Dr Abu-Al Rish, told the BBC on Friday.
Dr Sabbah, from Kamal Adwan Hospital, said: “It’s dangerous because there are patients in the ICU department in a coma and in need of ventilation machines and moving them will put them in danger.”
He had said critically ill patients needed to be moved in specialised vehicles.
The World Health Organization said the raid “has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service”.
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it posted on X on Friday.
Nadav Shoshani, international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a post on Friday evening on X that a “small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control”.
This was when IDF troops were not inside the hospital, he said, adding that “after preliminary examination, no connection was found between IDF activity to the fire”.
The director of Kamal Adwan hospital had said on Friday that approximately 50 people had been killed, including five medical staff, in a series of Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital.
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The statement from Dr Hussam Abu Safiya said a building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, leading to the death of a paediatrician and a lab technician, as well as their families.
He said a third staff member who worked as a maintenance technician was targeted and killed as he rushed to the scene of the first strike.
Two of the hospital’s paramedics were 500m (1,640ft) away from the hospital when they were targeted and killed by another strike, the statement continued, with their bodies remaining in the street with no-one able to reach them.
The Israeli military said on Friday morning that it was “unaware of strikes in the area of Kamal Adwan hospital” and was looking into the reports that staff had been killed.
Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a tightening Israeli blockade imposed on parts of northern Gaza since October, when the military said it had launched an offensive to stop Hamas from regrouping there.
The UN has said the area is under a “near-total siege” as the Israeli military heavily restricts access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.
In recent days, the hospital’s administrators have issued desperate pleas appealing to be protected, as they say the facility has become a regular target for Israeli shelling and explosives.
Oxfam said that attempts by aid agencies to deliver supplies to the area since October had been unsuccessful because of “deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the Israeli military.
Additional reporting by Shaimaa Khalil
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
BBC
International
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
US President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok the day before his January 20 inauguration if it is not sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance.
“In light of the novelty and difficulty of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues,” Trump’s legal team wrote, to give him “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution.”
Trump was fiercely opposed to TikTok during his 2017-21 first term, and tried in vain to ban the video app on national security grounds.
The Republican voiced concerns — echoed by political rivals — that the Chinese government might tap into US TikTok users’ data or manipulate what they see on the platform.
US officials had also voiced alarm over the popularity of the video-sharing app with young people, alleging that its parent company is subservient to Beijing and that the app is used to spread propaganda, claims denied by the company and the Chinese government.
Trump called for a US company to buy TikTok, with the government sharing in the sale price, and his successor Joe Biden went one stage further — signing a law to ban the app for the same reasons.
– Reversing course –
Trump has now, however, reversed course.
At a press conference last week, Trump said he has “a warm spot” for TikTok and that his administration would take a look at the app and the potential ban.
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Earlier this month, the president-elect met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Recently, Trump told Bloomberg he had changed his mind about the app: “Now (that) I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok, because you need competition.”
“If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram — and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
International
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Actress Olivia Hussey, who shot to international prominence as a teenager for her role in the acclaimed 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, has died aged 73.
The Argentinian-born actress, who grew up in London, died on Friday surrounded by her loved ones, a statement posted on her Instagram said.
Hussey won the best new actress Golden Globe for her part as Juliet, but decades later she sued Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse as she was aged just 15 when she filmed the movie’s nude scene.
Her other most notable screen role was as Mary, mother of Jesus, in 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth.
“As we grieve this immense loss, we also celebrate Olivia’s enduring impact on our lives and the industry,” the statement said.
Hussey was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1951, before moving to London aged seven and studying at the Italia Conti Academy drama school.
1968’s Romeo and Juliet was nominated for best picture and director Oscars
She was 15 when Romeo and Juliet director Franco Zeffirelli discovered her onstage, playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the play The Prime of Miss Joan Brodie
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Zeffirelli was looking for someone who was young enough to be a convincing Juliet in what he intended to be the definitive cinematic version of the Shakespeare play.
He cast Hussey alongisde British 16-year-old Leonard Whiting as Romeo in the film.
The film was nominated for an Oscar for best picture and director. Hussey missed out on an Oscar nomination herself in a strong year in which Barbra Streisand won the main award for Funny Girl.
But at that year’s Golden Globes Hussey won the award for best new star.
Decades later, she and Whiting sued Paramount Pictures alleging Zeffirelli – who died in 2019 – had encouraged them to film nude scenes despite previous assurances they would not have to.
The pair sought damages of more than $500m (£417m), based on suffering they said they had experienced and the revenue brought in by the film since its release.
But last year a judge dismissed the case, finding the scene was not “sufficiently sexually suggestive”.
In 1977, Hussey had reunited with Zeffirelli for Jesus of Nazareth to play the Virgin Mary, before appearing in Death on the Nile a year later based on Agatha Christie’s novel.
Her roles in early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning earned her recognition as a scream queen. In the latter, she p[layed Norman Bates’s mother in a prequel storyline.
In later years she also took on work as a voice actress, appearing frequently in video games.
But she did have one final reunion with her former Romeo – as she and Whiting appeared together in the 2015 British film Social Suicide, which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, albeit set in the social media era.
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
BBC
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