Here is the transcript of that speech:
Madam President, distinguished members of the court, it is an honor and privilege for me to appear before you today on behalf of the Republic of South Africa. I wish to express my gratitude to the court for convening this hearing on the earliest possible date to entertain South Africa’s request for the indication of provisional measures in this matter. In our application, South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nagba of the Palestinian people through Israel’s colonization since 1948, which has systematically and forcibly dispossessed, displaced and fragmented the Palestinian people, deliberately denying them they are internationally recognized inalienable rights to self-determination, and they are internationally recognized rights of return as refugees to their towns and villages in what is now the state of Israel. We are also particularly mindful of Israel’s institutionalized regime of discriminatory laws, policies and practices designed and maintained to establish termination, subjecting the Palestinian people to apartheid on both sides of the green line. Its long impunity for widespread and systematic human rights violations has emboldened Israel in its recurrence and intensification of international crimes in Palestine. At the outset, South Africa acknowledges that the genocidal acts and omissions by the state of Israel inevitably form part of a continuum of illegal acts perpetrated against the people, the Palestinian people since 1948. The application places Israel’s genocidal acts and omissions within the broader context of Israel’s 75-year apartheid, 56-year occupation and 16-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, a siege which itself has been described by the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza as a silent killer of people. As the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination warned on December 21, hate speech and dehumanizing discourse targeted at Palestinians, it’s raising severe concerns regarding Israel and other states’ parties’ obligation to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide in the Gaza Strip. This warning has been followed by a succession of warnings, including by 37 United Nations Special Reporters of the failure of the international system to mobilize to prevent genocide in Gaza. Today, we are joined in court by representatives of the Palestinian state, the Palestinians who work in the fields of human rights, including residents of Gaza who were in Gaza just a few days ago. They are some of the lucky ones who managed to get out of Gaza. They are the future and the future of their fellow Palestinians who are still in Gaza depend on the decision this court will make on this matter. Just the leave of the court, I now call upon his excellency, Mr. Ronald Lamola, Minister of Justice of the Republic of South Africa to make us Africa’s substantive opening remarks.