BERLIN

Germany is planning to intervene in the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the UN’s top court, a government spokesman said on Friday. 

“German government firmly and explicitly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel before the International Court of Justice. This accusation has no basis whatsoever,” spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

He stressed that Germany bears special responsibility for Israel due to the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II, and said the government will continue to support Israel to defend itself against Hamas.

“In view of Germany’s history, crimes against humanity, and Shoah (catastrophe in English), the government is particularly committed to the UN Genocide Convention,” Hebestreit said.

“The German government supports the International Court of Justice in its work, as it has done for many decades. The government intends to intervene as a third party in the main hearing,” he added.

On Friday, the Israeli government began defending itself at the world court, dismissed accusations of genocide, but failed to provide any convincing arguments or evidence.

South Africa, which brought the case, accused Israeli authorities of perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza during their military assault. It also requested provisional measures from the court to protect the Palestinian people, including by calling upon Israel to immediately halt military attacks.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas which Tel Aviv says killed around 1,200 people.

At least 23,708 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 60,050 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Soon after the current conflict began on Oct. 7, Israel ordered over 1 million people in the northern Gaza Strip to relocate to the south, regardless of warnings from humanitarian groups that such a large displacement would be a humanitarian disaster.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicines, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed.