This is an entry from: Israel-Palestine live: Israel’s response to South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ ends
Israel says at the ICJ that 23,000 dead Palestinians is Hamas' fault
12 January 2024 11:24 GMT
Galit Raguan has just spoke on behalf of Israel in a testy and often tendentious remarks to the courts:
- Initially Raguan started off by started off by blaming Hamas for the high civilian toll in Gaza in which more than than 80,000 Palestinians the majority who are women and children have been killed or wounded
- “Urban warfare will always result in civilian harm,” said Raguan. They “may be the unintended, but lawful result of attacks on military targets. They do not constitute genocidal acts”
- In Gaza, Israel alleged that Hamas has embedded itself “among the civilian population”
- South Africa says Israel “deliberately and unlawfully” destroyed homes. However, Raguan says harm to “local military objectives” is not evidence of genocide
- Raguan claims Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes without providing evidence of such action
- Despite evidence to the contrary, Raguan, claims Israel has not bombed hospitals. Damage to hospitals has been caused as the result of "hostilities" in the "vicinity of hopsitals"
- Israeli, she says provides advanced warnings before they launch any attack. There has been numerous accounts that the places where Palestinians have been asked to move to by the Isralei military has also been attacked by Israel