The International Court of Justice has finished hearing South Africa’s arguments in its case accusing Israel of genocide in its war in Gaza.

South Africa says Israel has breached the 1948 Genocide Convention by killing Palestinians while displaying genocidal intent in its public statements. Its team of lawyers laid out these arguments in front of 17 judges, livestreamed around the world over the course of three hours.

The case may take years, but South Africa is calling on the court to impose an order in the meantime to stop the violence while the case plays out.

“South Africa now respectfully and humbly calls on this honorable court to do what is in its power to do … to prevent further irreparable harm to the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, a lawyer on the South African legal team. “The very reputation of international law,” she added, “hangs in the balance.”

Tomorrow, Israel will present its defense, likely resting on its contention that it is targeting only Hamas and doing everything it can to protect civilians. It has rejected South Africa’s case as “an absurd blood libel.”

Many international law experts agree that Hamas is an inherently genocidal organization, but Vaughan Lowe, a British lawyer representing South Africa at the ICJ, has pointed out that because Hamas is not a state, it is not party to the Genocide Convention of 1948 and could therefore not be accused of this war crime at the ICJ.

Israel is one of the convention's signatories.

The International Criminal Court, or ICC, does deal with individuals, rather than states. And ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said last month that Hamas' attack Oct. 7 contained “some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity,” and said his court was ready to assist Israel in investigating.

A lawyer for South Africa has asked the ICJ to call for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza while the legal proceedings play out, saying that Palestinians' "hopes, including for their very survival, are now vested in this court."

As well as accusing Israel of genocide, which could take years for the court to rule on, South Africa is asking the court to impose "provisional measures" in the meantime to stop the violence.

"South Africa now respectfully and humbly calls on this honorable court to do what is in its power to do … to prevent further irreparable harm to the Palestinian people in Gaza," said Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, a lawyer on the South African legal team. "The very reputation of international law," she added, "hangs in the balance."

She told the court that "it is becoming ever clearer that huge swaths of Gaza — entire towns, villages, refugee camps — are being wiped from the map."

MAINZ, Germany — Global trade fell by 1.3% from November to December as Houthi rebels ramped up attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea, according to a new report.

The volume of cargo transported through the waterway plummeted by “more than half and is currently almost 70 percent below the volume that would usually be expected,” the Germany-based IfW Kiel institute said today.

“As a result, freight costs and transportation time in goods traffic between East Asia and Europe have risen,” the report added.

As a result of the attacks, shipping giants such as Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have been sending their vessels on longer, more expensive journeys around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. “The time it takes to transport goods between Asian production centers and European consumers is significantly extended by up to 20 days,” said Julian Hinz, director of the IfW Kiel’s trade policy research center.

After a short break, South Africa's genocide case against Israel in The Hague has resumed.

Max Du Plessis, a lawyer on South Africa's team, is telling the court: “Palestinians in Gaza — as a very substantial and important part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group — simply but profoundly have a right to exist.”

Lawyer John Dugard, a former U.N. special rapporteur and ad hoc judge on the court, quoted his country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who said in November that “Israel turned Gaza into a concentration camp where a genocide is taking place.”

Such comparisons of Israel’s war in Gaza to Nazi concentration camps on a world stage are likely to stir strong feeling in Israel. The country's government has accused South Africa of "blood libel" over the case.

The case at the ICJ is being heard by 15 judges, led by its American president, Joan E. Donoghue, and Russian vice-president, Kirill Gevorgian. The other nationalities are: Chinese, Indian, French, German, Japanese, Australian, Brazilian, Moroccan, Lebanese, Slovakian, Somalian, Ugandan and Jamaican.

In ICJ cases where parties to the case do not have judges on the bench, they may appoint what’s known as “ad hoc” justices.

For this, Israel has picked Aharon Barak, former president of its supreme court, and South Africa chose Dikgang Moseneke, its former deputy chief justice, both of whom were sworn in at the start of the hearing this morning.

An oil tanker once at the center of a crisis between Iran and the United States was boarded in the Gulf of Oman by “unauthorized” men in military uniforms early this morning, an advisory group run by the British military and a private security firm warned.

Details remained unclear in what was apparently the latest seizure of a vessel in the tense Middle East waterways. However, suspicion immediately fell on Iran as the ship was once known as the Suez Rajan and had been involved in a yearlong dispute that ultimately saw the U.S. Justice Department seize 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil on it.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, said today’s apparent seizure began early in the morning, in the waters between Oman and Iran in an area transited by ships coming in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes.

The private security firm Ambrey said that “four to five armed persons” boarded the ship, which it identified as the oil tanker St. Nikolas. It said that the men had covered the surveillance cameras as they boarded.

The tanker had been off the city of Basra, Iraq, loading crude oil bound for Aliaga, Turkey, for the Turkish refinery firm Tupras. Satellite-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press last showed the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker had turned and headed toward the port of Bandar-e Jask in Iran.

While South Africa has been making its case at the International Court of Justice, the Israeli government has continued outlining its pushback on social media ahead of its courtroom defense tomorrow.

“Instead of holding Hamas, a genocidal terror organization, responsible for its horrific actions, Hamas’ allies are engaging in victim blaming at the International Court of Justice,” Israel’s official X account wrote, calling it “disgraceful.”

It also documented on social media a march toward the court, in the Dutch city of The Hague, by family members of those kidnapped during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

South Africa has denied being an "ally" of Hamas, and "unequivocally" condemned its October attack during its legal filing and oral arguments.

The State Department has said accusations that Israel is committing genocide are “unfounded.”

The United States, Israel’s closest ally and biggest financial backer, recognizes that the International Court of Justice, where Israel will defend itself against such allegations, “plays a vital role in the peaceful settlement of disputes,” a State Department statement said. But it warned South Africa, which is bringing the case against Israel, that “such allegations should only be made with the greatest of care.”

Israel “has the right to defend itself against Hamas’ terrorist acts” and is “operating in an exceptionally challenging environment in Gaza,” it said, accusing Hamas and other militant groups of continuing "to openly call for the annihilation of Israel and the mass murder of Jews."

“We have also made clear Israel must not only comply with international humanitarian law in its operations against Hamas, but also look for more ways to prevent civilian harm and to investigate credible allegations of violations of international humanitarian law when they arise,” it said. “Finally, we continue to condemn dehumanizing rhetoric on all sides.