Bolivia says will join South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel for genocide in Gaza
Bolivia says it will join South Africa in a legal case filed against the Israeli regime in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for committing genocide against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Information Center quoted Bolivia’s Foreign Ministry as making the announcement in a statement on Monday.
La Paz said it praised the step taken by Pretoria in line with its commitment to the UN Genocide Convention.
Bolivia added that the judicial measure taken by South Africa was a “historic step” in defense of the rights of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause of liberation from Israeli occupation and aggression.
The Bolivian Foreign Ministry also called on the international community to throw its full weight behind this initiative.
It noted that the country — along with South Africa, Bangladesh, Comoros, and Djibouti — has also presented a separate request to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the situation in Palestine.
Bolivia is the first country in Latin America to announce its support of South Africa’s lawsuit.
In late December, South Africa started proceedings against Israel at the ICJ over the regime’s genocide in Gaza. The lawsuit says Israel’s actions are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
“The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” the lawsuit says.
