South Africa has approached the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention to stop Israel’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza.

In a statement issued on Friday, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said that the country was a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and was treaty bound to prevent genocide from taking place.

“South Africa is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants,” the statement said.

The statement added that there were reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by Israel as well as actions that meet the definition of genocide under the 1948 convention. It added that there is a danger that such acts may still be committed.

The department said that an application has been lodged in the ICJ on December 29 with the approval of South Africa’s cabinet.

“An application in this regard was filed before the Court on 29 December 2023 in which the Court is requested to declare on an urgent basis that Israel is in breach of its obligations in terms of the Genocide Convention, should immediately cease all acts and measures in breach of those obligations and take a number of related actions,” the statement said.

Twelve weeks after Hamas militants stormed Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, Israeli forces have laid much of the Gaza Strip to waste. Nearly all its 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes at least once, and many are now fleeing for the third or fourth time.

Gaza health authorities said 187 more Palestinians were confirmed killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, raising the toll to 21,507 - about 1 percent of Gaza’s population - with thousands more bodies feared unrecovered in the ruins.

Israel’s closest ally the United States has publicly called this month for it to scale down the full-blown war in coming weeks and transition to targeted operations against Hamas leaders.

But so far Israel shows no sign of doing so, launching a new assault in the final week of the year that began with intense bombing of central areas.