Tal Becker, a legal adviser to Israel’s foreign ministry, rejected South Africa’s accusation that Israel is committing acts of genocide against Palestinians at the The Hague’s International Court of Justice on Friday:

“As stated, none of these atrocities absolve Israel of its obligations under the law. But they do enable the court to appreciate three core aspects of the present proceedings, which the applicant has obscured from view. First, that if there have been acts that may be characterized as genocidal, then they have been perpetrated against Israel. If there is a concern about the obligations of states under the Genocide Convention, then it is in relation to their responsibilities to act against Hamas’s proudly declared agenda of annihilation — which is not a secret and is not in doubt. The annihilationist language of Hamas’s charter is repeated regularly by its leaders, with the goal, in the words of one member of Hamas’s political bureau, of the cleansing of Palestine, of the filth of the Jews.”