Sad news to surprise nobody. On page for the ICJ case #192 South Africa v. Israel: Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip, there is a new item added: Order of 21 May 2026 (PDF)

This is an order about homework. Brief timeline so far of homework deadlines in this case:

What has happened now is

• Israel has finally handed in their homework (originally due July 2025).
• After everyone read it, small meeting regarding how to proceed has been held.
  • SA has requested a 2nd round of written pleadings;
  • Israel does not want this. But if there would be a 2nd round, they want the same amount as time after SA, to prepare a rebuttal

SA asked for

at least 18 months to file its Reply given the complexity of the case, the voluminous nature of the [Israel's] Counter-Memorial (including its annexes) and the fact that, in addition to addressing the merits of the case, it contained objections to the jurisdiction of the Court and the admissibility of the Application;

So our next set of deadlines is:

• 22 November 2027 for the Reply of the Republic of South Africa
• 22 May 2029 for the Rejoinder of the State of Israel;
  • Multiple this by 2x or 3x based on past behavior

The details of the documents are not public at the moment and I am not sure if they will ever be. So at the moment one can only imagine the bankers box full of AI generated junk that has been dropped off for SA to sift through.

my thoughts

This update is very difficult to to know about. You can only find out by checking the website now and again. Or being on their impressively unpopular twitter This stuff is not much covered in general, but I can only find a bit of zionist gloating now. I don't think that's the correct analysis regarding the merits.

I'm not sure what is supposed to be happening here, if this is on track or not. I thought it was in a sort of preliminary phase, where the jurisdiction issues were sorted out. But I guess they are doing merits now?

It seems that many parties are including third-party written documents as evidence in filings, of which there's been many in the past few months, but without anything about witnesses, materials or other sorts of evidence. And there is a great deal of arguing over the legitimacy of the written evidence. This is especially being done by the Israel-ally side, who dispute whether any statements or reports by subordinates of the UN, NGOs and such can be admissible. The fact that the SA side spends very little time attacking the obvious horseshit their opponents have submitted by way of evidence (far right trash "reporting" that has already been thoroughly debunked in the press) makes me think this isn't the time.

any insights here?