Brazil to join South Africa's 'genocide' case against Israel

The foreign ministry in Brasilia said the country was "in the final phase of presenting a formal intervention" in the case already formally joined by states including Colombia, Libya and Mexico, and supported by many others.

In December 2023, South Africa brought a case to the United Nations' highest court in The Hague, alleging Israel's Gaza offensive breached the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Israel denies the accusation.

In rulings in January, March and May 2024, the ICJ told Israel to do everything possible to "prevent" acts of genocide during its military operations in Gaza, including by providing urgently needed humanitarian aid to prevent famine.

A statement from Brazil's foreign ministry denounced what it described as "indiscriminate violence" against civilians and the "blatant use of hunger as a weapon of war."

"The international community cannot remain inert in the face of ongoing atrocities," it read.

Israel is facing growing international pressure to end the war in Gaza that was triggered by a murderous attack on its soil by Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Israel hit back on Wednesday at accusations it was behind chronic food shortages in Gaza.

More than 100 aid and human rights groups have warned that "mass starvation" was spreading in the war-ravaged territory.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has repeatedly denounced an Israeli "genocide" in Gaza.

The UN Genocide Convention defines the term as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."