No compassionate human being, whether living in the Global South or the Global North, could hardly deny that what has happened in Gaza since after Oct. 7, 2023, is anything short of a horrific genocide conducted by the Zionist Israel Occupation Forces (IOF). 

President Joe Biden’s administration and its European allies led by Germany have unapologetically supplied their ally Israel with 2,000-pound bombs, armored tanks, fighter jets and other weaponry to carry out deliberate ethnic cleansing against a defenseless Palestinian civilian population, especially children. And once the Donald Trump administration occupies the White House again on Jan. 20, there is no reason to doubt that the same flow of arms will continue to reach the white, settler-colonial regime. 

The U.S. government’s support of Israel is not just on the military front but also on the political front. Legislation has been passed by both houses of Congress falsely equating opposition to Zionism and anti-Arab racism with antisemitism. This is intended to punish and silence any activist or group, especially on college campuses, who expresses any opposition to the genocide and its imperialist suppliers. 

When the government of South Africa — which itself carried out a decades-long struggle against apartheid — initiated a lawsuit before the International Criminal Court in November 2023, it documented in great detail the ongoing genocide in Gaza. One of the stipulations called for issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Israeli war minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes in Gaza. 

The ICC has the right to make recommendations, but no power to implement them. Nevertheless, in an effort to defend their war criminal ally, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an anti-ICC sanctions bill on Jan. 9 with bipartisan support. The Senate will vote on the same bill in the near future.

According to CNN, “The legislation calls for the warrants against the Israeli officials to be ‘condemned in the strongest possible terms.’ And, according to the legislative text, the measure would impose sanctions with respect to the court over ‘any effort to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.’ The sanctions include prohibiting U.S. property transactions and blocking and revoking visas.” (Jan. 9) 

This bill also provides immunity for any active member of the IOF if they travel outside of Israel.

Many aspects of a genocide

At the present moment, while peace talks in Qatar are close to reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, the people in Gaza continue to suffer daily airstrikes, bombings, forced starvation and babies freezing to death in inadequate tents during the winter. 

The Gazan Ministry of Health has attempted to keep the public informed on how many people have been killed and injured since Oct. 7, 2023, including the untold thousands buried under the rubble following bombings and airstrikes. Virtually all health care facilities have been destroyed in northern Gaza by the occupying force. This includes the indiscriminate murder of patients, paramedics, doctors and nurses.

The Cradle, an online publication that covers developments throughout West Asia, on Jan. 9 published results from a recent study done by The Lancet, a British medical journal, stating that the death toll in Gaza was “likely” undercounted by at least 41% during the first nine months of the genocide. The joint study was conducted from October 2023 until June 2024 by academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University and other institutions.

“We estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injury during the study period, suggesting the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) under-reported mortality by 41%. The annualized crude death rate was 39.3 per 1,000 people, representing a rate ratio of 14.0 compared with all-cause mortality in 2022, even when ignoring non-injury excess mortality,” the study says. (thecradle.co, Jan. 9)

These scholars state that around 59.1% of those killed were women, children and elderly people.

The Lancet acknowledges that the Ministry of Health adequately reported on the number of deaths at the beginning of the war but didn’t have the capacity to keep up with the rapidity of the death toll due to not only the destruction of hospitals but the ongoing disruption of communication controlled by Israel.

The study went on to say: “The escalation of Israeli military ground operations and attacks on health care facilities severely disrupted the [MoH’s] ability to record deaths electronically. These challenges compelled the MoH to rely on less structured data collection modalities, particularly when hospitals were under siege or experiencing telecommunication blockades. This might have led to incomplete and geographically biased reporting, as seen in other conflict zones where prolonged warfare complicates casualty tracking.”

The medical journal estimates that the death toll in Gaza could end up between 149,000 and 598,000, not only by military means but along with disease, destroyed health care infrastructure and severe shortages of food and water.

This study reflects an imperialist-backed genocide that is political, social and military.

South Africa’s case against Israel, now joined by Ireland, is absolutely justified.