The request submitted today to the UN’s highest judicial body argues that Israel’s ongoing military operation in the Palestinian territory is “part of a systematic effort to erase Palestinian society” and is signed by the Palestinian Authority’s deputy foreign minister for multilateral affairs, Ammar Hijazi. South Africa presented its case to the ICJ late last year, accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention in its military offensive that has destroyed large areas of Gaza. Israel denies committing genocide in its operation to eliminate the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which was triggered by an unprecedented barrage of rockets fired by the group into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. The court has issued three preliminary orders in the case, urging Israel to do everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties in the enclave, allow in humanitarian aid and, most recently, to halt its offensive on the city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinians – over half of Gaza’s population – displaced by the war were concentrated. It is not known how long it will take for the ICJ judges to rule on the Palestinian request. If it is accepted, the Palestinian authorities will be able to address the court in writing and during public hearings. In their request, the Palestinians invoke the fact that they are directly affected by the case. “The Israeli offensive has destroyed or rendered unrecognizable hospitals, mosques, churches, universities, schools, homes, businesses and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as part of a systematic effort to erase Palestinian society and its cultural and social institutions,” the document reads. The request adds that Israel is violating the ICJ orders and continuing “its genocidal acts, including the willful and systematic impediment of access to humanitarian assistance, resulting in a situation of intentionally-created starvation that is approaching famine proportions.” The Palestinians have been to the ICJ before: in 2018, the Palestinian Authority filed a complaint asking the judges to order Washington to withdraw the US embassy it had recently moved to Jerusalem. The case followed the decision by the administration of then US president Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. That case is still pending at the ICJ, which can take years to rule on the cases that come before it. Israel launched a war in the Gaza Strip on October 7 last year to “eradicate” Hamas after the latter fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel hours earlier that killed 1,189 people, most of them civilians. The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) – which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and is designated a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and Israel – also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in captivity and 37 of whom have since died, according to the latest figures from the Israeli military. The war, which entered its 241st day today and continues to threaten to spread throughout the Middle East, has so far left more than 36,000 dead, over 83,000 injured and around 10,000 missing, presumed buried in the rubble, in the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of them civilians, according to figures updated by the local authorities. The conflict has also displaced almost two million people, plunging the impoverished and overcrowded Palestinian enclave into a severe humanitarian crisis, with more than 1.1 million people in a “catastrophic food security situation” that is claiming lives – “the highest level ever recorded” by the UN in its food security studies worldwide. Read Also: Arab countries willing to deal “positively” with plan on truce in Gaza (Portuguese version)