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Israel has released more than 30 confidential documents related to its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, The New York Times reported on Thursday (25).
The gesture comes on the eve of the statement by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), better known as the Hague Court, on allegations that the Jewish state is promoting the genocide of Palestinians. Although trials of this type can take years, the court is expected to give an initial response to the accusation made by South Africa this Friday (26).
According to the NYT, by publishing the documents, Tel Aviv wants to show that the Israeli government actively sought to spare civilians during the fighting. Nearly 26,000 Palestinians have died in the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people on Israeli soil, according to calculations by local health authorities linked to Hamas.
In theory, the Israeli strategy makes sense. South Africans' main argument is that the Jewish state has a “genocidal motivation” against Palestinians and imposes conditions on them that lead to their deaths and the destruction of their territory. This alone would constitute a violation of the 1948 International Convention against Genocide. Not surprisingly, a large portion of the 84page complaint filed by South Africa reproduces public statements by Israeli leaders that purport to demonstrate this motivation.
To counter this idea, Israeli defense claims that official government actions take precedence over public statements from the country's leadership. The released documents would therefore contain evidence that Israel is promoting a legitimate war against Hamas and not a military campaign against Palestinian civilians.
According to the NYT, which had access to the dossier, these papers include meeting minutes showing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the delivery of aid and fuel to Gaza. He also reportedly directed the government to explore the possibility of “external agents” setting up field hospitals to accommodate the local population and suggested anchoring a hospital ship off the coast.
At the same time, the American newspaper points out a number of problems in the documents. One is that the published papers do not contain orders from the first ten days of the war, when Israel blocked the delivery of aid and cut off water and electricity supplies to the Palestinian territory.
Five days after the fighting began, for example, Energy Minister Israel Katz wrote in .
The International Court of Justice, which, unlike the ICC (International Criminal Court), judges states and not individuals, heard initial arguments from both sides at the beginning of January. It is expected that the first preliminary decision will be a ceasefire order.
The decisions of the United Nations' main judicial body are binding, but the court has little ability to enforce them in practice. For example, in March 2022, a month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the ICJ demanded that Vladimir Putin's troops immediately leave Ukrainian territory. The decision was challenged by Russia and its ally China, who argued that the company had no jurisdiction over the case and that nothing had been done about the conflict, which enters its second year next February.
In any case, a decision against Israel in the Hague court would further increase international pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which is also facing resistance at home.
This Thursday, family members of Hamas hostages tried for the second day in a row to block the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, demanding that the flow of humanitarian aid to the area be stopped until the abductees are released. On Monday (22), demonstrators linked to the same cause had already tried to break into the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
Meanwhile, the longstalled dialogue with Hamas suffered a new blow on Tuesday (23) when Channel 12 released an audio recording in which Netanyahu reportedly said Qatar was problematic.
“You didn’t see me thanking Qatar, did you notice? I never thanked Qatar. Why? Because for me Qatar is basically the same as the UN, like the Red Cross, and in some ways it is even more problematic.” [que eles]” says a voice that appears to be that of the Prime Minister in the recording.
The Gulf state was outraged by the situation. He was the one who brokered the talks between the Jewish state and the terrorist group and was, among other things, responsible for the agreement that enabled the release of 105 hostages in November.
Asked whether the recording was authentic and whether he would comment on Qatar's statement, an Israeli government spokesman said he “could not go into detail about the efforts and steps taken to free the hostages.”
Also on Thursday, one of Hamas' leaders, Osama Hamdam, said the faction would comply with a possible ceasefire order from the court as long as Israel also respects it. In addition, Hamdam stated that if Tel Aviv released all the Palestinians it held in its prisons, the group would release all of the hostages still held in Gaza which would be more than a hundred.
With Portal and the New York Times