The genocide accusation against Israel that stands on a court record is South Africa’s Application under the 1948 Genocide Convention, signed at The Hague on 28 December 2023 and filed the next day. It is a state party’s pleading, not a finding (Republic of South Africa, 2023). The word is also used in other capacities: by Ireland’s Dáil in a non-binding motion of 7 November 2024, by Brazil’s president at a press conference on 5 June 2025, and by a scholar in a peer-reviewed article of 9 May 2024. Lists of accusers usually arrive as one line, and the record separates them into an applicant, a legislature, a head of state and a scholar. Beside them it places the accused state’s own published position and counts, including 74 criminal investigations opened as at 3 August 2024 by the IDF’s own count.
Key Findings
- South Africa’s Application of 28 December 2023 runs to 151 numbered paragraphs and grounds the Court’s jurisdiction, at paragraph 17, in Article IX of the Genocide Convention. It is a state party’s own pleading, not a finding (Republic of South Africa, 2023).
- Six states, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, argued in a declaration of 15 November 2023 in The Gambia v. Myanmar for a more holistic test of genocidal intent. Nimer Sultany’s peer-reviewed article applies that reading to Gaza and concludes that “the threshold of intent is met” (Sultany, 2024).
- Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a paper updated to 2 November 2023, states that “compliance is conduct-oriented, not result-oriented.” This is the accused party’s own statement of its legal position (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023, Key Legal Aspects).
- COGAT’s truck-level record counts 32,946 trucks between 21 October 2023 and 31 May 2024, a party’s own operational count that has not been independently verified. Its dashboard records that “no aid entered the Gaza Strip between March 2 to May 19 2025” (COGAT, 2026).
- The IDF Military Advocate General’s Corps reports 74 criminal investigations opened as at 3 August 2024. This is the IDF’s own count of investigations opened, not of findings or convictions (Israel Defense Forces, Military Advocate General’s Corps, 2024).
Which state has taken a genocide accusation against Israel to court?
The Republic of South Africa filed an Application against Israel in the Registry of the International Court of Justice on 29 December 2023, a day after its Agent signed it at The Hague (Republic of South Africa, 2023). The case is entered as General List No. 192. The Application is a pleading by a state party: it records what South Africa alleges, not what any court has determined.
The document runs to 151 numbered paragraphs. Jurisdiction is set out in Section II, the facts in Section III and the request for provisional measures in Section VI. Paragraph 17 states the legal basis in one sentence: “Therefore, pursuant to Article 36 (1) of the Court’s Statute and Article IX of the Genocide Convention, the Court has jurisdiction to hear the claims submitted in the present Application by South Africa against Israel.”
The pleading also sets out the treaty history it relies on. Paragraph 9 dates Israel’s ratification of the Convention to 9 March 1950 and South Africa’s accession to 10 December 1998. Paragraph 11 records that “Neither South Africa nor Israel has entered any reservation to Article IX.” On the pleading’s own account, both states had accepted the Court’s jurisdiction over Convention disputes long before the filing.
South Africa frames its case in its own words at paragraph 2. There it places “the acts of genocide in the broader context of Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians during its 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-year-long belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza.” Those characterisations are South Africa’s own and are carried here as the applicant’s allegations.
Who else calls it genocide, and since when?
Ireland’s Dáil passed a non-binding motion on 7 November 2024 agreeing that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza,” as the Press Association reported for BreakingNews.ie that day (BreakingNews.ie, 2024). A motion is a statement by a legislature, with no court process attached. The same report quotes the Tánaiste as saying that Ireland does not impose unilateral domestic sanctions.
A head of state used the word seven months later. Speaking beside France’s president in Paris on 5 June 2025, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called the war in Gaza “um genocídio premeditado,” a premeditated genocide, as Poder360 reported (Poder360, 2025). Both statements are dated illustrations, not a count. Lists of “recognising” states that circulate online mix speeches, motions and support for South Africa’s case, and the dated statements by individual states need reading one by one.
The scholarly position is on record under a name and a date. Nimer Sultany, Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London, argued in a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Genocide Research, published online on 9 May 2024, that “the threshold of intent is met, and Israel violated the Genocide Convention” (Sultany, 2024). His article measures nothing; the casualty figures in it are relayed from other bodies and are not carried here.
Advocacy organisations set out their positions in their own documents, under their own standards of proof, and none of them is a court. One organisation’s position is examined in a separate report on Amnesty International’s findings. The distinction matters because the capacities differ in what they can produce. A motion records a chamber’s position on a date, a president’s phrase records a remark, and an article records an argument. Only the applicant’s pleading sits before a court that can reach a judgment on the merits.
What did South Africa ask the Court to order?
South Africa’s Application requested nine provisional measures at paragraph 144. At paragraph 148 it reserved “the right to revise, supplement or amend the terms of this Application, as well as the grounds invoked” (Republic of South Africa, 2023). That request is the applicant’s own. What the Court then indicated is a separate record, with its own text and its own recorded votes.
The Court’s order of 26 January 2024 indicated six measures, and every one opens “The State of Israel shall.” The first requires Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention,” and lists four of them: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and measures intended to prevent births. Four of the six measures carried by 15 votes to 2 and two by 16 to 1, on a bench of 17.
The order states the standard it applied, and paragraph 30 sets the limit: “the Court is not required to ascertain whether any violations of Israel’s obligations under the Genocide Convention have occurred. Such a finding could be made by the Court only at the stage of the examination of the merits.” Paragraph 54 states what was found plausible: “the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance.” Read together, the two paragraphs record a finding about rights at an interim stage. They contain no finding that genocide was occurring.
The two 16-to-1 measures, on preventing and punishing “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” and on enabling humanitarian assistance, drew the vote of Judge ad hoc Aharon Barak, the judge Israel chose for the case. The Court modified its measures twice more in 2024. Its order of 28 March reaffirmed the January measures by 14 votes to 2 on a bench of 16. Its order of 24 May reaffirmed them by 13 votes to 2 on a bench of 15. The majorities fall because the bench shrank: Judge ad hoc Moseneke ceased to sit after a South African national was elected to the Court, and Judge Tomka did not sit in May. Thirteen of 15 is a larger share of the bench than 15 of 17.
Why does the case name only Israel as respondent?
Paragraph 17 of South Africa’s Application grounds jurisdiction in Article IX of the Genocide Convention, a clause that covers disputes between the Contracting Parties to the Convention (Republic of South Africa, 2023). The case therefore has two parties, South Africa and Israel. The Court spelled out the consequence for third parties in its order of 28 March 2024.
Paragraph 44 of that order reads, in full: “With regard to the measures requested by South Africa addressed to States or entities not parties to the present proceedings, the Court recalls that: ‘the judgment in a particular case by which disputed rights may be adjudged by the Court to belong to the Applicant or to the Respondent has, in accordance with Article 59 of the Statute of the Court, “no binding force except between the parties”... accordingly the Court may, for the preservation of those rights, indicate provisional measures to be taken by the parties, but not by third States or other entities who would not be bound by the eventual judgment to recognize and respect those rights’... The Court thus cannot, in the exercise of its power to indicate provisional measures in the present case, indicate the first three provisional measures sought by the Applicant.” The March order states that its French text is authoritative, so this English wording is a translation of the governing text.
The three requests set aside at paragraph 44 would have reached beyond Israel. The first asked that “All participants in the conflict must ensure that all fighting and hostilities come to an immediate halt, and that all hostages and detainees are released immediately.” The other two were addressed to “All Parties to the Convention.” In January, South Africa had also asked that “The Republic of South Africa and the State of Israel shall each” take reasonable measures to prevent genocide, and the Court did not indicate that measure in its mutual form either.
On this record, every measure the three orders indicate is addressed to the State of Israel, and none to a Palestinian party, because no Palestinian party is before the Court. The orders’ reasoning does address armed groups in Gaza. Paragraph 85 of the January order states that the Court “is gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release.” The March and May orders each repeat the call. The list of named respondents follows from Article IX and Article 59.
Which states argued for a lower bar to prove intent?
Six states, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, asked the Court in a Joint Declaration of Intervention of 15 November 2023 in The Gambia v. Myanmar to assess genocidal intent “in a more holistic way,” as Nimer Sultany records in his peer-reviewed article (Sultany, 2024). Their declaration concerned Myanmar. Sultany then applies its reasoning to Gaza.
The standard at issue is the “only reasonable inference” requirement: where intent is inferred from conduct, genocidal intent must be the only reasonable inference available. Sultany describes the six states’ argument that the Court “should lower this high legal requirement of ‘only reasonable inference’ from the materials and instead assess genocidal acts and intentions in a more holistic way.” He calls it a “high legal requirement” and makes the case for the six states’ reading. His conclusion follows from it: “If this interpretation is applied consistently, without double standards, the conclusion should be that the threshold of intent is met, and Israel violated the Genocide Convention.”
He also separates two obligations that are often run together: “States are under a positive obligation to prevent when there is a ‘serious danger’ of genocide, whereas complicity consists in assisting the perpetrator with the knowledge that the perpetrator is engaged in genocide.” On military language, the argument of his article is that military goals can conceal genocidal intent, and that the “collateral” and proportionality vocabulary “masks indiscriminate attacks.”
Marko Milanovic approaches the same standard from the other direction, in a post on EJIL:Talk!, the blog of the European Journal of International Law, published on 18 September 2025. The post is named-author commentary and is not peer-reviewed (Milanovic, 2025). He traces the test to criminal law: “The notion of an ‘only reasonable inference’ comes to international law from the jurisprudence of the first modern ad hoc criminal tribunals.” On his reading it follows from proof beyond reasonable doubt, so it does not bind bodies working to a lower standard: “Other fact-finders are not bound to apply a high standard of proof or ORI, for genocide or other international crimes alike. This includes formal fact-finding bodies, like a UN CoI, but also governments, NGOs, academics, or ordinary people.”
The two authors differ on what the test is. Sultany argues the bar should be lowered for the Court itself. Milanovic argues that commissions, governments and organisations were never held to it. Milanovic’s own view, that one can “rationally choose to believe that Israel is committing genocide or crimes against humanity in Gaza without requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” is his named position on a contested question.
What legal standard does Israel say governs its conduct?
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a paper updated to 2 November 2023, states that “compliance is conduct-oriented, not result-oriented,” so that an attack causing “more collateral damage than expected” does “not necessarily indicate a violation” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023, Key Legal Aspects). This is the accused party’s own statement of its legal position. It is not a finding of compliance.
The same paper sets out Israel’s targeting rule in one sentence: “the IDF only targets persons who are members of organized armed groups or civilians directly participating in the hostilities.” On treaty status, it says that Israel “abides by all applicable rules of customary international law, including those embodied in conventions to which it is not a party (such as the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions).” On warnings, it says that “the IDF does not assume that there are no civilians in areas or sites where advance warnings had been given.” On legal review, it says that “IDF legal advisers are not subject to the IDF chain of command on professional matters, but report directly to the Military Advocate General.”
A second Ministry document, its Frequently Asked Questions updated to 8 December 2023, gives Israel’s own counts of its warnings (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023, Frequently Asked Questions). It reports “over 15 million text messages,” “over 12 million pre-recorded phone calls,” “over 4.5 million leaflets” and “over 45,000 individual phone-calls.” Each is a floor and cumulative to that date. The four channels overlap, so they cannot be added into a number of warnings or of people warned. The same document says proportionality is “to be applied to each and every attack independently,” and describes a “Civilian Harm Mitigation Unit” that “constantly monitors in real time the implementation of these evacuation recommendations.”
Both documents are a party’s own published position, dated within the first ten weeks of the war, and they predate South Africa’s filing.
What does Israel’s own aid record count since the accusation?
COGAT, the Israeli Ministry of Defense unit that coordinates civilian matters in the territories, records 32,946 trucks entering through its crossings between 21 October 2023 and 31 May 2024, one row per truck (COGAT, 2026). This is a party’s own operational count at its own crossings and has not been independently verified. It bears on the conditions-of-life act that the January order listed, and it is a count of entries. It is not a measure of conditions.
The record sorts every truck into one of five content classes. Food accounts for 22,281 trucks, or 67.6% of the 32,946, on the Institute’s own tally of COGAT’s published rows. COGAT’s dashboard notes that “mixed aid” and “shelter equipment” trucks “may also contain food items.” The record also carries a tonnage column, headed “Estimated weight (tons),” which COGAT says rests on “the self-declaration of humanitarian organizations and private sector providers.” The truck count is a tally made at inspection, and the tonnage is a sum of shippers’ declarations. Tonnage is not carried here.
COGAT’s own dashboard records an interval of no entries in a single line: “According to the directive from the political echelon, no aid entered the Gaza Strip between March 2 to May 19 2025.” That is the accused party’s own statement of eleven weeks with nothing entering.
Israel’s Permanent Mission to the Multilateral Organizations in France gave a larger total, as Israel’s reported count. It stated that “more than 106,000” aid trucks had entered Gaza since 7 October 2023, as of 14 September 2025 (Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Mission of Israel to the Multilateral Organizations in France, 2025). The two figures cover different periods and are published by different arms of the same government. Neither supports a daily average: the crossings do not operate on Saturdays, and the 2025 nil period sits inside any war-long span.
What has Israel’s military prosecutor opened since the accusations?
The IDF Military Advocate General’s Corps reports 74 criminal investigations opened into conduct in the Gaza war as at 3 August 2024 (Israel Defense Forces, Military Advocate General’s Corps, 2024). This is the IDF’s own count of its own processes, published by a party to the events. It counts investigations opened. It does not count findings, indictments or convictions.
The Corps breaks the 74 down by subject: 44 concern the deaths of detainees held by the IDF, 13 alleged pillaging or theft, 8 alleged detainee mistreatment, 6 alleged illegal use of force, and 3 alleged destruction of civilian property without military necessity. The same page reports “over 1,000” incidents referred to the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism, with hundreds still undergoing assessment when it was written. That mechanism was created during the 2014 Gaza conflict on a recommendation of the Turkel Commission.
The count depends on the threshold for opening a case, and the Corps states that threshold in its own words. In armed conflict, “death or injury to a civilian or harm to civilian objects, while tragic and regrettable, in most cases do not by themselves indicate a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, as they can be explained as reasonable aftermath of lawful operational activity.” Under that standard, an incident that harms civilians is assessed first and investigated only where it raises reasonable suspicion. That accounts for the distance between more than 1,000 referrals and 74 investigations.
On its own oversight, the Corps writes that “The MAG is subject only to the law on professional matters and operates with full independence.” It adds that MAG decisions are “subject to civilian oversight and can be challenged on appeal in front of Israel’s Attorney General, as well as before the Israeli Supreme Court.” These are the IDF’s own descriptions of its own machinery. None of these documents carries evidence about any particular incident.
Methodology and limitations
The evidence is the documentary record of who has made a genocide accusation against Israel, in which instrument, in what capacity and on what date. Alongside it sits the accused state’s published legal position and its own counts. No source in this evidence base measures whether conduct in Gaza meets the elements of Article II of the Genocide Convention.
Sources fall into four types. The primary records are South Africa’s filed Application, read in full, and Israel’s own documents: two Ministry of Foreign Affairs papers, COGAT’s truck-level workbook and dashboard, a Permanent Mission statement, and the Military Advocate General’s Corps page. Every Israeli figure is a party’s own count and is labelled that way. The scholarly material is one peer-reviewed article (Sultany, 2024) and one named-author blog post that is not peer-reviewed (Milanovic, 2025). Neither carries a measurement. Sultany’s casualty figures are relayed from other bodies and are not used. Two statements of the word’s use, by Ireland’s Dáil and by Brazil’s president, rest on press reports by the Press Association and Poder360. The Dáil’s own record and the presidential transcript were not read.
The three Court orders of 26 January, 28 March and 24 May 2024 were read in full and are quoted in body prose for their operative text and recorded votes only. Every vote is given with its bench size. The March order is authoritative in French.
COGAT’s content totals and the 67.6% food share are the Institute’s arithmetic on published rows. The truck-level series ends on 31 May 2024. COGAT’s dashboard publishes later figures that depend on a date filter, and no average is computed from them.
Conclusion
So which states and international bodies accuse Israel of genocide? On the record, one state has done so as a litigant. South Africa’s Application of 28 December 2023 is the accusation that stands before a court, and it is a pleading, not a finding. Other uses of the word come in other capacities: a non-binding Dáil motion in November 2024, a presidential remark in Paris in June 2025, and a peer-reviewed argument in 2024.
The record around those accusations has a definite shape. The Court indicated six measures in January 2024 and reserved the question of violation for the merits. Every measure was addressed to Israel because Article IX admits only states parties, while the Court’s reasoning called on Hamas and other armed groups to release the hostages. Six Western states argued in a different case for a more holistic test of intent, and Sultany’s conclusion on Gaza rests on that reading. Israel answers in its own published terms. Its rule is that compliance is “conduct-oriented, not result-oriented.” COGAT’s own unverified count records 32,946 trucks to May 2024 alongside an acknowledged eleven-week nil in 2025. The IDF’s own count records 74 investigations opened under a threshold that the IDF itself states.
One question remains for the reader. If the same word carries a filed allegation, a legislature’s motion, a president’s phrase and a scholar’s argument, each made under a different standard of proof, how should a public sort those uses, when only one of them will ever reach a judgment on the merits?
Frequently Asked Questions
Has the Court ruled on whether genocide occurred?
No. Paragraph 30 of the Court’s order of 26 January 2024 states that such a finding “could be made by the Court only at the stage of the examination of the merits.” The three 2024 orders are interim measures, and the case remains at that earlier stage.
Are provisional measures binding on Israel?
Yes. Paragraph 83 of the January order states that orders under Article 41 of the Statute “have binding effect and thus create international legal obligations” for the party addressed. The March and May orders each add that they are “without prejudice to any findings concerning the Respondent’s compliance,” so those documents establish nothing about compliance.
Why did South Africa plead genocide rather than apartheid?
South Africa’s Application invokes Article IX of the Genocide Convention as its route to the Court and pleads no apartheid instrument (Republic of South Africa, 2023). Apartheid appears in the Application only as background, in paragraphs 2, 4 and 35. The document gives no reason for its choice of treaty.
Is a parliamentary motion an accusation in law?
The Dáil motion of 7 November 2024 was non-binding, as the Press Association reported, and opened no legal proceeding (BreakingNews.ie, 2024). It records a chamber’s stated position on a date. The same report quotes the Tánaiste on the limits of Ireland’s domestic sanctions powers.
Is a UN commission held to the Court’s standard of proof?
Not on Milanovic’s reading. He argues that “Other fact-finders are not bound to apply a high standard of proof or ORI,” and names “formal fact-finding bodies, like a UN CoI” among them (Milanovic, 2025). That is his named position on a contested question, and it is why a commission’s conclusion and a court’s judgment can rest on different evidentiary bars.
Which Israeli body reviews alleged misconduct by soldiers?
The Military Advocate General’s Corps decides on criminal investigation after factual assessment by the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (Israel Defense Forces, Military Advocate General’s Corps, 2024). By the Corps’ own account, its decisions can be appealed to Israel’s Attorney General and challenged before the Supreme Court.
How does Israel describe its evacuation system?
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes a numbered map of Gaza neighbourhoods shared with the public to create a “common language,” monitored in real time by a Civilian Harm Mitigation Unit (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023, Frequently Asked Questions). The Ministry calls the mechanism effective, its own assessment, and gives no figure behind that claim.
Sources
- BreakingNews.ie (Press Association, Cillian Sherlock), 2024. Report of the Dáil motion on Gaza, 7 November 2024. BreakingNews.ie. https://www.breakingnews.ie. Press relay of a parliamentary motion.
- COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), 2026. Gaza Aid Data portal: the truck-level “Humanitarian Aid” workbook and the Aid Data dashboard. Israel Ministry of Defense. https://gaza-aid-data.gov.il/media/d15pw0ii/humanitarian-aid.xlsx and https://gaza-aid-data.gov.il/mainhome/. Official record (a party’s own operational count).
- Israel Defense Forces, Military Advocate General’s Corps, 2024. Addressing Alleged Misconduct in the Context of the War in Gaza. Israel Defense Forces, published 24 February 2024, updated 3 August 2024. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/military-advocate-generals-corps/addressing-alleged-misconduct-in-the-context-of-the-war-in-gaza-published-february-24-2024/. Official record (a party’s own reported counts).
- Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023. Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Frequently Asked Questions. Updated to 8 December 2023. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/swords-of-iron-faq-6-dec-2023. Official record (a party’s own position and counts).
- Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023. Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Key Legal Aspects. Updated to 2 November 2023. https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/generalpage/swords-of-iron-faq-6-dec-2023/en/English_Documents_Hamas-Israel%20Conflict%202023%20-%20Some%20Factual%20and%20Legal%20Aspects%20-%20Israel%20Ministry%20of%20Foreign%20Affairs%20(2%20NOV%202023).pdf. Official record (a party’s own legal position).
- Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Mission of Israel to the Multilateral Organizations in France, 2025. Israel’s Objectives and Current Operation. Last updated 17 September 2025. https://embassies.gov.il/multilateral-organizations-france/en/news/israels-objectives-and-current-operation. Official record (a party’s own reported counts).
- Milanovic, Marko, 2025. Proving Genocide. EJIL:Talk!, blog of the European Journal of International Law, 18 September 2025. https://www.ejiltalk.org/proving-genocide. Named-author academic commentary, not peer-reviewed.
- Poder360 (Evellyn Paola), 2025. Report of the Brazilian president’s press conference in Paris, 5 June 2025. Poder360. https://www.poder360.com.br. Press relay of a head-of-state statement.
- Republic of South Africa, 2023. Application instituting proceedings and Request for the indication of provisional measures, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), signed 28 December 2023, filed 29 December 2023, General List No. 192. Primary record (a state party’s own pleading).
- Sultany, Nimer, 2024. A Threshold Crossed: On Genocidal Intent and the Duty to Prevent Genocide in Palestine. Journal of Genocide Research, Taylor & Francis, published online 9 May 2024. DOI 10.1080/14623528.2024.2351261. Peer-reviewed.