from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Friday, January 12th.

Yesterday and today, the International Court of Justice has been hearing South Africa's claim

that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and hearing Israel's defense.

For example, South Africa says Israel is targeting not just Hamas, but all Palestinians in Gaza,

and that the level of Israel's killing is so extensive that nowhere in Gaza is safe.

Israel presented its case today.

What they said going into it was that they're only killing as many civilians as necessary to stop Hamas from staging more attacks like the one on October 7th, an attack that Israel says was itself with genocidal intent,

which Israel emphasizes was the most deadly attack anywhere on Jews since the Holocaust.

So we'll see how the court rules and to what effect. Meanwhile, since yesterday's show, the U.S.

and Great Britain have become more directly involved in the shooting war in the region,

dropping bombs that reportedly struck at least 60 targets in 16 locations around Yemen,

aiming at the military capabilities of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

President Biden said, quote, these strikes are in direct response to

unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea, including

the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history, unquote, from President Biden.

We'll talk about both these developments now with Julian Borgier, the Guardian's World Affairs

editor.

He was previously a correspondent in the U.S., the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans.

He is the author, as some of you may know, of the book The Butchers Trail, how the search

for Balkan war criminals became the world's most successful manhunt

published in 2017. He has an article in The Guardian now saying the Gaza case, now being heard,

could usher in a new age of greater relevance for the 75-year-old International Genocide Convention.

...