Amsterdam/Gaza, 7 March 2024 (dpa/MIA) - Israel hit back on Thursday at another attempt by South Africa to get the UN's top court to intervene in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

South Africa filed an urgent request to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to order Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the devastated Gaza Strip, citing the threat of famine.

South Africa said it made the renewed request to the ICJ for an emergency measure in light of the "widespread starvation" in the Palestinian territory, according to statement from the court.

In the statement, South Africa accuses Israel of "continuing egregious breaches of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."

South Africa lamented that at least 15 children died of starvation last week.

Writing on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat lambasted South Africa for making the request.

"South Africa continues to act as the legal arm of Hamas in an attempt to prevent Israel's right to defend itself and its citizens, and to work for the release of the kidnapped," he wrote.

"We call on the court to reject outright the latest request by the representatives of Hamas," he wrote.

"Israel acts and will continue to act according to international law, and allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip," he wrote.

At the end of December, South Africa took Israel to the ICJ, accusing it of violating the Genocide Convention during the ongoing Gaza war. In an interim ruling, the UN court ordered Israel to take protective measures to prevent genocide.

In response to increasingly harsh criticism from other countries due to the catastrophic supply situation in the Gaza Strip, Israel asserted on Wednesday that more aid was arriving in the coastal strip than before the war began.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said in a post on X that "more food trucks are entering Gaza every day than before Hamas started this war."

An infographic in his post showed that in the past two weeks, an average of 102 food shipments arrived in the Gaza Strip every day. That compared to 70 trucks per day before October 7, according to the post. Levy's figures could not be immediately verified.

Levy said there were many false reports circulating that Israel was restricting the amount of aid deliveries.

"There are no limits on the amount of humanitarian aid that can enter the Gaza Strip," Levy said in a video posted on X. "I repeat: none."

Nevertheless, the situation of the people in the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly desperate and, according to the UN, there is a threat of famine if the aid deliveries by lorry are not increased.

Around 2.2 million people live in the Gaza Strip. The war was triggered when the Palestinian militant group Hamas and other extremist groups launched coordinated attacks on southern Israel on October 7 last year, killing 1,200 people.

Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive. According to the Hamas-run Gazan health authority, 30,717 people, overwhelmingly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli offensive so far.

Photo: MIA archive