The ICC did no such thing, you're probably thinking of the ICJ, which also did no such thing according to one of the judges that ruled on that decision:

“I’m glad I have a chance to address that because the court’s test for deciding whether to impose measures uses the idea of plausibility. But the test is the plausibility of the rights that are asserted by the applicant, in this case South Africa” she told the BBC show HARDtalk.

“The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court,” Donoghue said. “It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide—and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media—it didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”

“It did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide,” she added. “But the shorthand that often appears, which is that there’s a plausible case of genocide, isn’t what the court decided.”

Donoghue’s term on the bench expired a few days after the court delivered its initial ruling on Jan. 26.

https://www.jns.org/former-top-hague-judge-media-wrong-to-re...

▲

istjohn 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem determined that it is a genocide in a report released September 16: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...

	▲	rashkov 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) is not a legal body, which would be the sort of body that is able to make a genocide determination. It also does not speak on behalf of the UN, given that it an independent commission of inquiry. I am curious to see what the ICJ ruling in South Africa's case will be. That would be an actual legal body charged with making a genocide determination.

▲

komali2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It is interesting to me that all this sweat and tears are spent deliberating over the use of a word in faraway courts while all of us can see with our eyes the horrors Palestinians are subjected to by the occupying IDF. "We didn't say there was a genocide! We acknowledged the plausibility of the possibility that potentially maybe an investigation might perhaps occur into the possibility of maybe Palestinians being able to experience a genocide by someone."

It reminds me of a conversation I had with an Israeli a few weeks back. He asked me, "if what Israel is doing is so bad, why does nobody stop it?"

A great question. I don't know. And the bodies of children continue to pile up.

▲

rashkov 6 hours ago | parent [-]

If you want to redefine genocide to mean "a very bad thing" then go ahead, but doing so would hollow out the term.

There's nothing stopping people from discussing the events in Gaza as a tragedy and a war crime, but activists are intent on attaching the word genocide to this. Referring to it as a genocide has become a litmus test to be considered pro-Palestinian.

	▲	notmyjob 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To be fair, the UN working group that declared it genocide was completely precise in how they defined it and the criteria they used. Totally fair to disagree either with the existence of that working group, their definition of genocide, or with the facts they cite as evidence, but to pretend it’s just a bunch internet activists playing rhetorical tricks is clearly subterfuge.