By Friday afternoon, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will have decided whether South Africa has made a prima facie genocide case against Israel over its military operation in Gaza - and decide whether there is a basis to order an immediate ceasefire.

Israel is adamant the 25 000 Palestinians killed in Gaza over the last three months (70% of whom are women and children) died as a direct result of the deadly 7 October attack launched on it by Hamas.

Hamas killed some 1 200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 240 more during that attack, which reportedly also involved horrific acts of rape and torture. 

While it has condemned Hamas' 7 October attack on Israel, South Africa is adamant these atrocities can never justify the allegedly genocidal language used by Israeli government and military leaders to discuss the wholescale destruction of Gaza - and the resultant genocidal violence it contends is linked to that overtly dehumanising language.

According to Israel's own estimates, only 32% of the people it has killed in the Gaza conflict were Hamas fighters - meaning an estimated 68% are believed to be civilian casualties.

Law experts have told News24, based on precedent from the UN's top court and the largely UN-produced evidence of mass death, injury, starvation, disease and displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza detailed by South Africa, it would be a significant aberration for the ICJ not to find there is a basis to suspect genocide may be being committed in Gaza.

Professor of human rights law at the University of Pretoria, Magnus Killander said he believed South Africa had made a case that would persuade the ICJ it needed to "indicate provisional measures" to urgently address the potential "irreparable harm" faced by Palestinians in Gaza.

"There will be far more discussion on the ICJ's interim ruling if they don't indicate any provisional measures at all because then I think there will be a legitimacy crisis, similar to the one in 1966 in relation to the South West Africa judgment of the ICJ," he added.

In the South West Africa case, and through a split ICJ vote, Ethiopia and Liberia tried and failed to take control of the territory that would later become Namibia out of the hands of apartheid South Africa and asked that it be subject to the supervision of the UN.

The ICJ found Ethiopia and Liberia could not be considered to have established any legal right or interest to pursue that case and rejected it.

In all three of the genocide cases brought before the ICJ, the court has found there was a basis to suspect the three accused countries (Yugoslavia, Myanmar, and Russia) may be deliberately killing a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group, with the aim of partially or completely destroying them. 

On that basis, the court's majority indicated certain provisional measures against these countries.

Killander is not, however, convinced the ICJ will grant the provisional measure that South Africa has fought hardest for: an order that Israel immediately suspend its military operation in Gaza.

"I think there will be some order for provisional measures.

"There will very much be a split vote, with quite a few separate opinions on it - but there will be some form of provisional measures granted by the majority…

"Some judges may order a ceasefire, but I would be a bit surprised if that was the majority of the court," he said.

The ICJ previously granted an order for Russia to stop its military operation in Ukraine, after Ukraine accused President Vladimir Putin's administration of seeking to justify its destruction by claiming its people were Nazis. Putin ignored that ruling.

Israel is adamant the ruling against Russia is based on wholly different facts and context than South Africa's case against it.

It points out Hamas has been classified as a "terrorist organisation" by 46 countries.

As a result, Israel argues, a ruling that it stops its war against Hamas would prevent it from being able to defend itself against the organisation, whose 1988 manifesto advocates for the annihilation of Israel.

An associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town, Cathy Powell, said she believed this might be Israel's strongest argument.

"In this case, no one has denied that we've got an armed conflict - and Israel's case is, because Hamas is not before the court, if the ICJ orders a ceasefire, it'll be tying their hands and not Hamas' hands," she added.

That argument, Powell said, "will probably be one of the deciding factors that will stop the order of a ceasefire, but - if the ICJ gets to provisional measures at all - they will have found a prima facie case for genocide".

She added the sources used by South Africa to make its case against Israel were "international and respected", in contrast to Israel's use of Israeli Defence Forces sources to counter the accusations made against it.

"There was a line in the Israeli argument that said South Africa was just citing Hamas. No, South Africa was not just citing Hamas.

"South Africa was citing dozens of different sources. The actual evidence that South Africa produced was compelling."

Israel's response, Powell said, had been to argue the ICJ did not have jurisdiction to hear the case, because there was no evidence of genuine dispute between South Africa and Israel over Gaza and, despite Israeli ministers and military chiefs referring to people in Gaza as "human animals", that it had no genocidal intent towards the more than two million Palestinians trapped in that densely populated area.

"Thirdly, [Israel is arguing], to the extent that we appear to be killing an awful number of civilians and flattening an awful number of civilian objects, it's all Hamas' fault."

Powell added she had also not been persuaded by Israel's assurances the humanitarian crisis in Gaza - where a child is killed every 15 minutes on average - would improve.

Since Israel made that argument, the UN's humanitarian agency, OCHA, reported, at the time its lawyers were arguing the country was committed to addressing Gaza's humanitarian crisis, only seven of 29 planned missions to deliver desperately needed supplies to northern Gaza were let through by Israeli authorities.

While Israel maintains this is because Hamas smuggles weapons in aid trucks and/or steals aid, the UN's World Food Programme spokesperson described this trickle of aid as systemic limitation.

In any event, Powell said, any improvement in the humanitarian situation in Gaza - and the tempering of Israeli leaders' language towards the Palestinians in the area - had come about after South Africa launched its genocide application against Israel.

As a result, she added, she believed it was likely the ICJ would indicate provisional measures against Israel.

"Even if the provisional measures end up being pretty mealy-mouthed, they would have been ignored anyway.

"But the victory is the finding that there is a prima facie case [of genocide against Israel] and the attempt by the ICJ to stop the genocide, in some form or another."