Germany to intervene in genocide case against Israel: Official

BERLIN (AA) – Germany is planning to intervene in the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the UN’s top court, a government spokesman has said.

“German government firmly and explicitly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel before the International Court of Justice. This accusation has no basis whatsoever,” spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

He stressed that Germany bears special responsibility for Israel due to the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II, and said the government will continue to support Israel to defend itself against Hamas.

“In view of Germany’s history, crimes against humanity, and Shoah (catastrophe in English), the government is particularly committed to the UN Genocide Convention,” Hebestreit said.

“The German government supports the International Court of Justice in its work, as it has done for many decades. The government intends to intervene as a third party in the main hearing,” he added.

South Africa, which brought the case, accused Israeli authorities of perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza during their military assault. It also requested provisional measures from the court to protect the Palestinian people, including by calling upon Israel to immediately halt military attacks.

Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 7, as a result of which at least 23,708 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children. 60,050 others have been injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Soon after the current attacks began on Oct. 7, Israel ordered over 1 million people in the northern Gaza Strip to relocate to the south, regardless of warnings from humanitarian groups that such a large displacement would be a humanitarian disaster.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicines, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed.