Cuba files to join South Africa’s genocide case at ICJ against Israel

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) – Cuba has filed a declaration that it will join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, the court announced on Monday.

“Cuba, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” the court said in a statement.

In December 2023, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel, claiming violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Several countries have since joined the case, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, and Türkiye.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since a Hamas attack in October 2023 despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

Nearly 46,600 people, most of them women and children, have since been killed and over 105,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, leaving most of the strip an uninhabitable wasteland.