Turkey to Join South Africa in Genocide Case Against Israel at World Court

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan attends the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 11, 2023. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

Turkey has announced its intention to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in Gaza.

“Upon completion of the legal text of our work, we will submit the declaration of official intervention before the ICJ with the objective of implementing this political decision,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a joint press conference with his Indonesian counterpart in Ankara on Wednesday. “Turkey will continue to support the Palestinian people in all circumstances.”

In January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was providing documents to support South Africa’s case at the ICJ.

“I believe Israel will be convicted there. We believe in the justice of the International Court of Justice,” Erdogan told reporters, adding that Turkey would continue to provide documents, mostly visuals, on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Erdogan’s comments came days before the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide. However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations — which Israel and its allies have described as baseless and may take years to get through the judicial process. Israeli officials have strongly condemned the ICJ proceedings, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.

Pro-Israel advocates welcomed the ICJ ruling because it did not impose a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza and called for the release of the hundreds of hostages taken by the Hamas terrorist organization, which rules Gaza, during its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Rather than declare that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and order the Jewish state to stop its military campaign in the Palestinian enclave, the court issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide.

Since then, South Africa has asked the world court at The Hague to order further steps against Israel, which it said was breaching measures already in place.

South Africa’s Jewish community has repeatedly lambasted the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for adopting a hostile approach to Israel while not pressuring Hamas following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state.

In December, South Africa hosted two Hamas officials who attended a government-sponsored conference in solidarity with the Palestinians. One of the officials had been sanctioned by the US government for his role with the terrorist organization.

Israel has accused South Africa of acting as “the legal arm of Hamas.”

Turkey, meanwhile, has similarly attacked Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza following the Oct. 7 massacre, with Erdogan being one of the Jewish state’s harshest critics.

In March, for example, Erdogan threatened to “send [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.

Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”

Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terror group’s budget.

Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terror group.

However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Turkey and South Africa’s diplomatic relations with Israel have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 253 others as hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.

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