The foreign ministry announced on Thursday that it will submit arguments to the International Court of Justice about the genocide case against Israel.
South Africa launched proceedings in 2023, accusing Israel of breaching its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention—established after the Holocaust—making it a crime to intentionally destroy a people based on their ethnicity, nationality or race.
Any country that is a party to the treaty can intervene to put forth its own interpretation of the law. The Netherlands is the 17th country to announce with will participate, Iceland also made a similar declaration on Thursday.
According to a public filing, the Dutch intend to weigh in on several points of law, including the treatment of children and withholding humanitarian aid.
The Netherlands wants judges to “take account of starvation or the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid for the purpose of establishing specific intent, in particular when this occurs on the basis of a concerted plan of a consistent pattern of conduct.”
The crime of genocide requires a high bar of proof, namely that a country had a “specific intent” to destroy a group.
During hearings in 2024, South African pointed out what they called the “genocidal rhetoric” that comes from Israel’s political and military leaders and trickles all the way down to its soldiers on the ground—rhetoric that they shows the necessary intention to commit genocide.
In separate proceedings, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for using starvation as a weapon of war by blocking humanitarian aid and other supplies. Those accusations are based on war crimes, not genocide.
Israel strongly denies that its war amounts to genocide and has called the proceedings at both courts baseless.
Hamas’ October 7 attacks killed some 1,200 people in Israel and more than 200 Israelis were taken hostage. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s war in Gaza since, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The Netherlands has intervened in other cases, including supporting Ukraine in proceedings against Russia.
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