A day after South Africa argued that Israel had committed genocidal acts in Gaza with intent from "the highest levels of state", Israel said yesterday that was a "partial and deeply flawed picture".
It claimed that blame for many Palestinian civilian deaths - more than 23,000 people, about 1% of Gaza's population, have been killed since 7 October and the destruction of tens of thousands of buildings lay with Hamas either directly or indirectly.
Lawyers for Israel said civilians had been killed by Hamas boobytrapping homes, mining alleyways and misfiring rockets, and that the militant group's use of schools and hospitals for military purposes had caused their structures to collapse.
In his opening statement, Tal Becker, the Israeli foreign ministry's legal adviser, said: "The applicant has regrettably put before the court a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture. The entirety of this case hinges on a deliberately curated decontextualized and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities." He said South Africa's application for the court to issue provisional measures ordering a ceasefire represented an "unconscionable request" that "seeks to thwart Israel's inherent right to defend itself".
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