It has been 102 days since Hamas overran an Israeli military base and massacred hundreds of Israeli civilians. Northern Gaza is now bombed and in ruins, with tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. Millions more struggle to find water, food and shelter.
A few days ago, in a boarded-up courtroom in The Hague, men and women in robes and wigs debated whether what was happening in Gaza was deliberate ethnic destruction. Does that mean it's a massacre?
The accuser is South Africa, a nation that emerged from a stifling apartheid regime only a few decades ago. The accused was Israel, a nation founded in the wake of history's most infamous genocide.
But the court, as in the past, was weighed down by the current symbolism of a major African country being held accountable as one of the West's closest allies.
as a guardian Chris McGreal To tell michael safi, the case at the International Court of Justice itself will likely take years. However, a provisional decision ordering Israel to immediately cease military operations in Gaza could be just weeks away.
Photo: Remco de Waal/EPA
