The South African Cabinet is calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel for the crime of “genocide” following the bombing of a hospital in Gaza, according to a post-Cabinet briefing on 19 October. This, in spite of it having been categorically proven that it was a missile that misfired from within Gaza on 17 October that hit the hospital car park, and the Jewish state had absolutely nothing to do with it.
“Cabinet calls on the International Criminal Court to investigate the 17 October bombing [of a hospital in Gaza], and the crime of genocide in this conflict, and on the international community not to allow the perpetration of another Holocaust under its watch,” said minister in the South African presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, at the post-Cabinet briefing. “The Jewish Holocaust is enough stain in the history of mankind for the international community to fold its arms while the Israeli government perpetrates a Palestinian Holocaust.” She said the government hadn’t approached the ICC yet.
Comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy and the Nazis is clearly considered to be antisemitism, according to the widely adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.
Ntshavheni’s comments also came after British and American intelligence services and many international media houses examined the evidence and proved that the explosion, not a bombing, in the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza was a misfired rocket by a Palestinian terrorist organisation from within Gaza. It killed more than 400 people and injured more than 300, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza. United States intelligence agencies assessed a death toll between 100 and 300.
Local news outlets reported that Ntshavheni said the South African government “didn’t need to wait for a briefing from anyone to believe that Israel was responsible for the bombing”, and that the country “can’t run away from taking responsibility”.
“Since last week, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have been killed, and far more injured. Many violations of international law have been committed, by all sides, and Cabinet calls for accountability and justice in response to all those crimes,” she said. “Cabinet condemned the cowardly attack by Hamas that killed and injured innocent people. Similarly, Cabinet condemned the heinous opportunism of the Israeli government to use Hamas’ cowardice to continue its genocide against the people of Palestine.
“Cabinet believes the international community must be seized with finding a permanent security solution for the people of Israel and Palestine through the settlement of the two-state solution founded on the 1947 borders,” she said. This was a departure from South Africa’s official position on the conflict, which usually calls for a return to 1967 borders.
In the same briefing, Ntshavheni said Cabinet had also been briefed on South Africa’s greylisting status by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in February. She said several areas identified by the FATF showed that the country was not complying with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing standards.
Considering the South African government’s vocal support of terrorist organisation Hamas, many analysts have noted that this may come under further scrutiny. However, Ntshavheni didn’t make this connection, saying that the deadline to address the non-compliance was 2025 and so far, the country was on track in its efforts to do so.
The minister said a meeting at the end of October would consider whether the country had taken enough steps in adhering to the concerns raised by the FATF. “Greylisting has an impact on the economy and performance of the country,” she said.
Mary Kluk, the vice-president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the director of the Durban Holocaust & Genocide Centre, said, “It’s now widely understood that the Gaza hospital tragedy was, in fact, the work of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It’s not surprising that the South African government hasn’t retracted its vicious accusations, but what lingers far longer is its ignorant use of the word ‘genocide’ in its judgement of Israel.
“To quote Stephen Smith, the UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation] chairperson on genocide education: ‘Genocide isn’t an opinion. It’s a crime. This crime was defined by the 1948 UN Genocide Convention shortly after the Holocaust, as well as the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.’
“It’s a legal term that requires a particular court of law to try such cases,” says Kluk. “The UN is clear that genocide is based on intent – it’s the intent that matters, specifically the intent to destroy in ‘whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group’.
“In fact, it’s Hamas’ brutal attack on southern Israel which was carried out with an ‘intent to destroy in whole or in part’ a national group – Israelis – a goal explicitly declared by Hamas, that has the hallmarks of genocide,” says Kluk. “Should the massacre of 7 October be brought to the ICC, there’s widespread legal opinion that it would meet the requirements of a genocide, but that’s for the courts to decide.
“What’s deeply disturbing is that senior members of our government continue their uneducated use of provocative language and false accusations at such a sensitive time for all humanity.”
Benji Shulman, the director of public policy at the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), says, “The SAZF reaffirms that the misappropriation, dilution, and sensationalisation of the very specific terminology of ‘genocide’ shouldn’t be used unless warranted. To do so minimises the suffering of those, like the Jews, who have actually experienced a genocidal assault on their people.
“Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni is correct in stating that the bombing of a hospital is an international war crime. As such, the SAZF expects her to file a complaint in the International Criminal Court against Hamas for bombing an Israeli hospital four times since its unprovoked attack on Israel began on 7 October 2023.
“The South African government’s full-throated support of extremist groups and the parroting of their propaganda, including the denial that Palestinian Islamic Jihad bombed its own hospital and blamed it on Israel, is appalling. The world continues to watch as South African foreign policy is misdirected against democratic values and human rights around the world.”
