ISRAEL insisted today at the United Nations’s highest court that its war in Gaza was a legitimate defence of its people and insisted it was Hamas that was guilty of genocide.

Israel described the allegations levelled by South Africa as hypocritical and said that one of the biggest cases ever to come before an international court reflected a world turned upside down. 

Israeli leaders defend their air and ground offensive in Gaza as a legitimate response to Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Israeli legal adviser Tal Becker told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that the country was fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.

“In these circumstances, there can hardly be a charge more false and more malevolent than the allegation against Israel of genocide,” he said, noting that the horrible suffering of civilians in war was not enough to level that charge.

South African lawyers asked the court on Thursday to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in the besieged coastal territory that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians but which the UN last week described as “uninhabitable.” 

Calling for the case to be thrown out, Mr Becker said South Africa’s request for an immediate halt to the Gaza fighting amounted to an attempt to prevent Israel from defending itself against that assault.

Mr Becker dismissed the accusations against Israel as crude and attention-seeking.

Responding to Israel’s defence, the International People’s Assembly said: “Israel’s strategy in the ICJ today was to peddle lies and repeat baseless claims instead of facing the overwhelming evidence of genocide presented by South Africa. 

“While Israel defended itself in court, it continued to commit genocide in Gaza.”

The IPA said: “Even when acting in self-defence, countries are required by international law to follow the rules of war, and judges must decide if Israel has.”

As the two days of hearings ended today, ICJ president Joan Donoghue said that the court would rule on the request for urgent measures “as soon as possible.”

More than 23,000 people in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. 

Nearly 85 per cent of Gaza’s people have been driven from their homes, a quarter of the enclave’s residents face starvation, and much of northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble.