Tribunal Penal Internacional, em Haia, na Holanda — Foto: Bloomberg
Although Brazil is neither a party to the conflict nor to the action itself, it will be legally bound by the interpretation that the ICJ gives to the Genocide Convention.
By: O Globo with international agencies — The Hague
Brazil has formally submitted a declaration of intervention to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the Hague Tribunal, in the case brought by South Africa against Israel for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip, the court announced on Friday.
According to the ICJ, the document was filed on 17 September, under Article 63 of the Court’s Statute, which grants states party to a convention the right to intervene when the interpretation of that treaty is at stake. In other words, even though Brazil is not a party to the conflict or to the proceedings, it will be legally bound by the ICJ’s interpretation of the Genocide Convention.
In its submission, Brazil stated that it was exercising this right as a signatory of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and declared that the interpretation of Articles I, II and III of the convention is under debate in the case, presenting its own legal view on the matter.
The Court further reported that, in accordance with Article 83 of the ICJ Rules, South Africa and Israel have been invited to submit written observations on Brazil’s intervention.
South Africa had filed the case on 29 December 2023, accusing Israel of breaching obligations under the Genocide Convention in its actions against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, the court has ordered a series of provisional measures, including directives for Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide.
With this move, Brazil joins a list of countries seeking to intervene in the case. Similar requests have already been submitted by Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Turkey, Chile, the Maldives, Bolivia, Ireland, Cuba and Belize, among others.
The ICJ, based in The Hague, Netherlands, is the UN’s principal judicial organ and adjudicates legal disputes between states.
UN Investigators Confirm Genocide
On Tuesday, in a report, UN investigators accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza with the aim of “destroying the Palestinians” living there and blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials for inciting the crime. Following the announcement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry “categorically rejected the biased and mendacious document”.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the world organisation and is the target of strong criticism from Israel, denounced that “genocide is happening in Gaza”, said Navi Pillay, chair of the commission, to AFP.
The commission, tasked with investigating the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, published the report almost two years after the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s attack in Israel on 7 October 2023. The COI concluded that since October 2023, Israeli authorities and forces have committed “four of the five genocidal acts” listed in the 1948 Genocide Convention.
The acts include “killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
The investigators state that explicit declarations by Israeli civil and military authorities, together with the pattern of conduct by Israeli forces, still “indicate that genocidal acts were committed with the intent to destroy (…) the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip as a group”.
The report concludes that President Isaac Herzog, Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant “incited genocide and that Israeli authorities failed to take action against them to punish the incitement”.
Solidarity Actions
Shahla Othman, president of the Santa Catarina Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People Khader Othman and executive secretary of Internationalist Women of the Unión Palestina de América Latina (UPAL), delivered the SOS Free Palestine dossier to João Marcelo Queiroz Soares, Brazil’s representative in the State of Palestine, and to Ahmad Jaradat, journalist at the Alternative Information Centre and member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, in Ramallah, Occupied Palestine, in August 2025.
Teresinha Pinto, coordinator of the Palestine Nucleus of the Workers’ Party of São Paulo (PT/SP), together with Simone Aparecida Preciozo Figliolino, coordinator of the Collective of Education Professionals for Palestine, delivered the SOS Free Palestine dossier to Mário Maurici de Lima Morais, PT/SP state deputy in the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp), also in August 2025.
Claude Fahd Hajjar, adviser to the Presidency of the Federation of Arab-American Entities (Fearab América), handed over the SOS Free Palestine dossier to Sheikh Mohammed Mahdi Imani Pour, Deputy Minister of Culture and President of the Islamic Culture and Communication Organisation of Iran, to Sheikh Ali Reza Mirjalili, cultural attaché of the Iranian Embassy in Brazil, and to Sheikh Hossein Khaliloo, leader of the Imam Al Mahdi Islamic Centre for Dialogue in Brazil (CIADB).
On the occasion, Professor Amyra El Khalili, representing the Women for Peace in Palestine Movement, presented Sheikh Mohammed Mahdi Imani Pour and Sheikh Ali Reza Mirjalili with a copy of the book Desert Flower – Poems and Reflections on Palestine, by Mustapha Elmadani, with editorial and artistic direction by Alexandre Rocha.
The gesture took place during the meeting Knowledge and Culture: Bridges for Peace between the Nations of Iran and Brazil, held on 6 September 2025 at the Laghetto Stilo Hotel in São Paulo.
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