The South African minister of justice says the country’s anti-apartheid revolutionary leader Nelson Mandela “will be smiling in his grave” at the ruling by the UN’s top court that ordered Israel to take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
Ronald Lamola made the statement after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide more than 100 days into Tel Aviv’s ferocious war on the besieged territory.
“We believe that former President Mandela will be smiling in his grave as one of the advocates for the Genocide Convention,” Lamola said on the sidelines of a gathering of the governing African National Congress (ANC) party outside the capital, Johannesburg.
The ANC, which has long defended the Palestinian cause, filed a lawsuit at the UN court in December, asking judges to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt its brutal onslaught on the besieged territory.
Lamola said South Africa’s move in hauling Israel before The Hague was an act of courage motivated by a desire to stand up for a rules-based world order.
“It is a victory for the international law that there could be no exceptionalism in any part of the world and Israel cannot be exempt from complying with its international obligations,” he added.
Earlier in the day, South Africa’s Foreign Ministry hailed as a “decisive victory” the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel must do everything it can to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
“Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people,” the ministry said in a statement.
“South Africa sincerely hopes that Israel will not act to frustrate the application of this Order, as it has publicly threatened to do, but that it will instead act to comply with it fully, as it is bound to do.”
International bodies, human rights organization and activists have unanimously praised the anti-Israel ruling by the ICJ.
Israel launched hostilities in Gaza following a historic operation by the Gaza-based Hamas resistance group against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people
More than 26,000 Palestinians, some 70 percent of whom are women, children, and adolescents, have been killed in the brutal onslaught so far, while upwards of 64,100 others have been injured.
