Excerpt:

I attended the hearing on Thursday of South Africa’s case against Israel for genocide at the International Court of Justice. I was able to sit in the public gallery and watch all the proceedings. I was, however, handicapped in reporting by the fact that we were not allowed pens or pencils (though we were allowed paper). I asked the Head of Security at the ICJ why pens were not allowed in the public gallery. He told me, with a perfectly straight face, that they could be used as a weapon. So bereft of my deadly ballpoint, this account is less detailed and more impressionistic than I would wish to give you.

A young lady informed me that I had to queue outside the small arched gate in the wall. It would open at 6am and the first 15 members of the public would be admitted to the gallery

I have written of my faith in the International Court of Justice, in its history of impartial judgment and in its system of election by the UN General Assembly. The ICJ has rather unfairly been tarnished by the reputation of its much younger sister the International Criminal Court. The ICC is rightly derided as a Western tool, but that really is not true of the ICJ. On Palestine alone, it has ruled that the Israeli “wall” in the West Bank is illegal and that Israel has no right of self-defence in the territory of which it is the occupying power.

In addition to the normal fifteen judges of the court, each of the parties to the dispute – South Africa and Israel – had exercised their right to nominate an additional judge. The nomination of Aharon Barak as the Israeli judge on the International Court of Justice is extraordinary, given that as President of Israel’s Supreme Court he refused to implement the ICJ judgment on the illegality of the wall, stating that he knew the facts of the matter better than the ICJ.

Barak has an extremely long history of accepting all forms of repression of Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Force as legal for “national security”, and in particular has repeatedly refused to rule against the longstanding Israeli programme of demolitions of Palestinian homes as collective punishment.

The President of the court, Joan Donoghue, is a US State Department, Clinton hack who has never formed an original idea in her life, and I should be astonished if she starts now.

There has been no more rabidly anti-Palestinian national elite than that of Germany. Rather than channel feelings of inherited guilt into opposition to genocide in general, they seem to have concluded that they need to promote alternative genocides to make amends.

On the other hand, there is a Ugandan judge on the ICJ who you might assume would align with South Africa. But Uganda, for reasons which frankly I do not fathom, joined the United States and Israel in opposing Palestine’s membership of the International Criminal Court, on the grounds Palestine is not a real state. Similarly India you might expect to support South Africa as a key member of BRICS. But India also has a Hindu Nationalist government prone to hideous Islamophobia.

South Africa opened with statements from their Ambassador and their Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola, and they opened with a bang...Within the first thirty seconds South Africa had launched both the word “Nakba” and the phrase “apartheid state” at Israel.

Minister of Justice Lamola came out with the first memorable phrase of the case. Palestinians had suffered “75 years of apartheid, 56 years of occupation, 13 years of blockade”...framing the argument. This injustice, and history itself, did not start on October 7.

South Africa stressed that in order for the request for “provisional measures” to be granted, it did not need at this stage to be proven that Israel was committing genocide. It only had to be shown that actions of Israel were prima facie capable of falling as genocide within the terms of the Genocide Convention.

The legal team then led off with Dr. Adila Hassim. She outlined that Israel was in breach of the Genocide Convention Article II a), b), c) and d). [these are itemized in the article]

The next lawyer, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (only South Africa spoke today) addressed the question of genocidal intent...What Ngcukaitobi did particularly well was emphasise the effective transmission of these genocidal ideas from senior government to the troops on the ground, who quoted the same phrases and genocidal ideas in filming themselves committing and justifying atrocities.

The venerable and eminent Professor John Dugard, a striking figure in his bright scarlet gown, then addressed questions of jurisdiction of the court and of the status of South Africa to bring the case – it is likely that Israel will rely heavily on technical argument to try to give the judges an escape route. Dugard pointed out the obligations of all state parties under the Genocide Convention to act to prevent Genocide, and the judgment of the court.

Next was Professor Max du Plessis, whose particularly straightforward manner and plainness of speech brought a new energy to proceedings. He said that Palestinians were asking the court to protect the most basic of their rights – they had the right to exist.

Palestinians had suffered 50 years of oppression, and Israel had for decades considered itself above and beyond the reach of the law, ignoring both ICJ judgments and security council resolutions. That context is important.

South Africa’s case was founded on respect for international law and was based on law and on fact. They had taken the decision not to show the court atrocity videos and photos, of which there were many thousands. Their case was of law and fact, they did not need to introduce shock and emotion and turn the court into a theatre.

This was a shrewd blow by Du Plessis. The hearings were originally scheduled for two hours each side. The South Africans had been told, very late, that was increased to three because the Israelis insist on showing their hour long October 7 atrocity video.

But undoubtedly the highlight of the entire morning was the astonishing presentation by Irish KC Blinne Ni Ghràlaigh. Her job was to demonstrate that if the Court did not order “provisional measures”, then irreparable damage would be done.

I cannot adequately convey to you the impression she made in that courtroom. Like the rest of the team she eschewed atrocity porn and set out the simple facts plainly but elegantly. She adopted the ploy used by all the South African team, of not using emotional language herself but quoting at length deeply emotional language from senior UN officials. Her outline of daily deaths by type was devastating.

I simply urge you to listen to her. “Each day over ten Palestinians will have one or more limbs amputated, many without anaesthetic …”

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The clip is about 30 minutes long and as Murray says, impressive. She cites a number of past cases where the ICJ ordered provisional measures, quoting the rationales they gave for doing so and pointing out that the severity and intensity of what is happening in Gaza far exceeds what was happening in those cases.

I've transcribed several minutes near the end of the clip below (starting about 26:40) because it's a starkly evocative assessment of the situation:

The international community continues to fail the Palestinian people. Despite the overt, dehumanizing, genocidal rhetoric by Israeli government and military officials, matched by the Israeli army's actions on the ground.

Despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people being live-streamed from Gaza to our mobile phones, computers and television screens. The first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting thier own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something.

Gaza represents nothing short of a moral failure, as described by the usually circumspect International Committee of the Red Cross.

As underscored by United Nations Chiefs, that failure has repercussions not just for the people of Gaza but for the generations to come who will never forget these over 90 days of hell and assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.

As stated by a United Nations spokesperson in Gaza last week at the site of a hospital clearly marked with the symbol of the Red Crescent, where five Palestinians including a 5-day-old baby had just been killed: "The world should be absolutely horrified. The world should be absolutely outraged. There is no safe space in Gaza, and the world should be ashamed."