The U.N.’s highest court is on Thursday hearing South Africa’s accusations of genocide by Israel in its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.  

The South African government submitted its case to the International Court of Justice, also called the World Court of Hague, on Dec. 29 — nearly three months into a devastating Israeli offensive in the Gaza enclave, which follows the Oct. 7 terror attacks of Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The Israeli offensive has claimed over 23,000 lives in Gaza to date, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian ministry of health.

In its 84-page written filing, South Africa says it “seeks an expedited hearing” and is “making the present application to establish Israel’s responsibility for violations of the Genocide Convention; to hold it fully accountable under international law for those violations; and — most immediately — to have recourse to this Court to ensure the urgent and fullest possible protection for Palestinians in Gaza who remain at grave and immediate risk of continuing and further acts of genocide.”

Israel has dismissed the suit as “blood libel” — a term that describes false and antisemitic accusations of bloodletting levied against Jewish people. Israel is scheduled to respond to the allegations at the ICJ on Friday.

Critics of Israel’s Gaza Strip campaign have questioned the proportionality of its response and the number of civilian casualties as a result of the siege. Israel maintains that it is at war with Hamas, rather than the Palestinian people. It accuses Hamas of weaponizing the civilian population as human shields and deliberately locating its spiderweb of underground tunnels under non-combatant sites in the Gaza territories, such as hospitals and schools.

Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter on Tuesday telegraphed intentions for her country to echo South Africa’s position.

“I want Belgium to take action at the International Court of Justice, following the lead of South Africa,” she said on social media, pledging to propose this measure with the Belgian government. “Belgium cannot stand by and watch the immense human suffering in Gaza. We must act against the threat of genocide.”

The U.K. has also signaled concerns over the Israeli campaign: “Am I worried that Israel have … has taken action that might be in breach of international law, because this particular premise has been bombed, or whatever … yes, of course I am worried about that,” U.K. Foreign Minister David Cameron said Tuesday.

Ahead of Thursday’s proceedings, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once more laid out his country’s aims in the Gaza Strip:

“Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population,” Netanyahu said in a video address released by his office. “Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law.”

He added that once the goals of the Israeli Defense Force offensive against Hamas had been achieved, “Gaza can be demilitarized and deradicalized, therefore creating a possibility of a better future for Israel and Palestinians alike.”

ICJ rulings are “binding upon the parties concerned,” final and hold no right of appeal. While the court lacks the means to directly enforce its decisions, its rulings can deal sharp reputational blows.  

The suit comes as fears have risen over Israel’s long-term intentions to potentially occupy the Gaza Strip following its offensive, with Reuters reporting calls from far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for Palestinians to leave the enclave for elsewhere.  

Israel’s close ally Washington, whose Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby condemned the South African lawsuit as  “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” has previously rejected a potential Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip.  

The Israel-Hamas conflict has increasingly seeped into international communities, spilling into protests, a rise in antisemitism worldwide and a nascent Red Sea crisis following the involvement of Yemeni Houthi militants, which share Iranian backing with Hamas.

As around half of the world’s adult population heads to the polls in a bumper year of elections, concern over the role of artificial intelligence in disrupting outcomes has topped the list of the biggest risks for 2024, according to a new report.

The World Economic Forum’s “Global Risks Report 2024,” released Wednesday, ranked AI-derived misinformation and disinformation — and its implications for societal polarization — ahead of climate change, war and economic weakness in its top 10 risks over the next two years.

“AI can build out models for influencing large populations of voters in a way that we haven’t seen before,” Carolina Klint, chief commercial officer for Europe at consultancy Marsh McLennan, which co-produced the report, told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“How that is going to play out is going to be quite important for us to watch,” she added.

Looking further ahead, the balance of risks for the next decade shifts toward extreme weather conditions and critical changes to the political world order, with two-thirds of those surveyed anticipating a new multipolar or fragmented world to take shape.

The WEF report, which was also produced in collaboration with Zurich Insurance Group, surveyed over 1,400 global risk experts, policymakers and industry leaders in September 2023 about their biggest global concerns.

The report’s authors said the combined risks are “stretching the world’s adaptative capacity to its limit,” and called on leaders to focus on global cooperation and building guardrails for the most disruptive emerging risks.

“An unstable global order characterized by polarizing narratives and insecurity, the worsening impacts of extreme weather and economic uncertainty are causing accelerating risks – including misinformation and disinformation – to propagate,” Saadia Zahidi, WEF’s managing director, said.

“World leaders must come together to address short-term crises as well as lay the groundwork for a more resilient, sustainable, inclusive future,” she added.

The most cited risks for the next two years were, in order: misinformation and disinformation, extreme weather events, societal polarization, cyber insecurity and interstate armed conflict. Also in the top 10 were lack of economic opportunity, inflation, involuntary migration, economic downturn and pollution.

Extreme weather events, critical change to earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, natural resource shortages and misinformation and disinformation were named as the most likely risks over the next 10 years. Adverse outcomes from AI technologies was also named as a longer-term concern.

“Artificial intelligence breakthroughs will radically disrupt the risk outlook for organizations with many struggling to react to threats arising from misinformation, disintermediation and strategic miscalculation, Klint said in the report.

“At the same time, companies are having to negotiate supply chains made more complex by geopolitics and climate change and cyber threats from a growing number of malicious actors. It will take a relentless focus to build resilience at organizational, country and international levels – and greater cooperation between the public and private sectors – to navigate this rapidly evolving risk landscape,” she added.

The report comes as global leaders are due to meet next week in Davos, Switzerland for WEF’s annual summit, during which they will discuss global issues including the ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, the economy and technology, under the event’s tagline “Rebuilding Trust.”

It also comes as the world embarks on a historic year of elections, with Taiwan this weekend kickstarting the elections, which are also due in the U.S., India, Russia, South Africa and Mexico.

In a separate 2024 global risks report released Monday, Eurasia Group named the upcoming U.S. election as its top risk for the year, with “ungoverned AI” also ranking among the top five.

Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, said in a press briefing that given the wider reaching ramifications of the election outcome, the consultancy had “no choice” but to rank the risk ahead of the wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.