South Africa says the International Court of Justice (ICJ) only needs to establish that some of its accusations against Israel are capable of falling under the Genocide Convention to effectively order the suspension of its military operations in Gaza.

In an 84-page application, some of South Africa's brightest legal minds will argue on Thursday there is a clear risk to the rights of the Palestinians and to South Africa's own rights under the Genocide Convention, if the ICJ does not "indicate provisional measures" to prevent the humanitarian crisis in Gaza - which human rights groups have described as "hell" - from continuing.

This is why, South Africa argues, the ICJ needs to issue interim measures against Israel, pending the determination of the genocide case against it.

"The 2.3-million Palestinians in Gaza, including over a million children, are extremely vulnerable.

"There is a grave threat to their existence. They are in urgent and severe need of the court's protection.

"With each passing day that Israel's military attacks continue, further significant loss of life and property is being caused, and grave human rights violations are being committed.

"There can be no doubt that the requirements for the indication of provisional measures are satisfied here," South Africa argues.

In addition to seeking the immediate suspension of Israel's military operation in Gaza, South Africa also wants Israel to be directed to prevent the "the expulsion and forced displacement" of Palestinians from their homes, as well as their deprivation of "access to adequate food and water", "medical supplies and assistance", and sanitation.

Among other measures, it also asks that Israel must be directed to "take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence" related to the genocide allegations against it.

Israel has vehemently denied there is any truth to South Africa's claims of genocide against it, with an Israeli spokesperson condemning the country's ICJ case as "blood libel" - a reference to anti-Semitic and false bloodletting accusations levelled against European Jews in the Middle Ages, as a mechanism to violently persecute them.

Israel maintains its military operation in Gaza is driven by the desire to destroy Hamas, the military and political organisation that launched a surprise attack on it on 7 October 2023 and butchered 1 200 people, most of whom were civilians.

It insists it has used a variety of innovative measures to protect the lives of Palestinian civilians in the densely populated area - including alerting residents that it intended to bomb their areas.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed more than 23 000 people.

South Africa's ICJ application records that at least 7 729 of the dead are children.

More than 55 000 Palestinians have been injured, including at least 8 663 children. More than a thousand of those injured children are amputees.

While it has unequivocally condemned Hamas' massacre on 7 October, and its ongoing abduction of civilians during that attack, South Africa is adamant that:

"No armed attack on a state's territory no matter how serious - even an attack involving atrocity crimes - can, however, provide any possible justification for, or defence to, breaches of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ['Genocide Convention' or 'Convention'], whether as a matter of law or morality."

It further argues the "acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip". 

"The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.

"The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention, and which has also violated and is continuing to violate its other fundamental obligations under the Genocide Convention, including by failing to prevent or punish the direct and public incitement to genocide by senior Israeli officials and others."

After outlining the dire conditions the Palestinian population in Gaza is living under, South Africa concludes its application against Israel by stressing the lived realities of the civilians caught in the conflict:

"One Palestinian child in Gaza has been killed approximately every 15 minutes since Israel commenced military action in Gaza on 7 October 2023.

"Thousands more are missing under the rubble. Sixty-one hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed; many have been placed under siege or have been subjected to forced evacuation, and only 13 hospitals are still partially functional, weighed under by mass overcrowding.

"Three hundred and eleven health workers have been killed, many while working, meaning that many of the wounded, including seriously injured children, cannot access healthcare."

Citing "clear, repeated dehumanising statements by Israeli governmental and military officials", which encourage the complete destruction of Gaza (including by a nuclear bomb), South Africa contends that Israeli decision-makers have articulated "a clear intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group 'as such'." 

"They [these statements] also constitute clear direct and public incitement to genocide, which has gone unchecked and unpunished."

The statements calling for the annihilation of Gaza have also coincided with the reported destruction of the area's houses - with more than 60% of homes in Gaza having been damaged or destroyed.

According to South Africa: "Israel has made a humanitarian response impossible with constant bombardment, including of safe routes. 1.9-million people, nearly 85% of the population, are displaced, including elderly, wounded and disabled people, living in makeshift tents, lacking any or adequate sanitation and water, in United Nations schools and with relatives. 

"The entire population is facing starvation: 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with more than one in four facing 'catastrophic conditions' - with death imminent.

"Against that background, the Israeli prime minister asserted on 25 December 2023: 'We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight, and we are deepening the fighting in the coming days, and this will be a long battle and it is not close to being over'. The circumstances could not be more urgent."

Speaking to News24, the political counsel at Change Starts Now, Nicole Fritz, stressed that, to persuade the ICJ to issue interim measures against Israel, South Africa would not need to prove as a fact it was perpetrating genocide. 

"What it does need to establish is that, if it is subsequently proven that Israel is committing genocide in terms of these attacks, it being allowed to continue with the attack on Gaza will be to further the perpetration of a genocide," she said. 

Fritz added she believed South Africa "will safely do this", given the strength of its highly detailed and referenced application, which she described as "strong".

"My sense is that we will get the relief that we are seeking."

That belief is shared by an American human rights lawyer, Francis Boyle, who acted for Bosnia at the ICJ and successfully obtained two orders against Yugoslavia, which demanded that it cease and desist committing genocide against the Bosnian population.

According to Boyle: "Based upon my knowledge, judgement and experience, I have read the application request for provisional measures of protection by the government of South Africa, I predict that South Africa will win an order for provisional protection against Israel to cease and desist committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians."

He said that order would "probably come, based on my experience with the Bosnians, within a week or so after the hearings next week".

However, Israel and the US do not share that view.

"As pertains the United States, we are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide," US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said of South Africa's ICJ application last week.

"Genocide is one of the most heinous atrocities that any individual can commit. Those are allegations that should not be made lightly," Miller added.

He said the US thought South Africa's decision to pursue an ICJ probe was not a "productive step to take at this time".

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the US considered the case "meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever".