Following on the heels of Iceland’s and the Netherlands’ shameful filing of intervention to join the genocide case against Israel, the United States filed an intervention Thursday to do the opposite: defend Israel. The U.S. is expected to argue that false accusations leading to a ruling against Israel will undermine international law.

South Africa was the first country to bring a case accusing Israel of genocide to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Since then, multiple countries, including Spain and Ireland ,have joined the case, with Iceland and the Netherlands following suit this week. The court will consider whether Israel’s actions in Gaza, launched against Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, constitute genocide.

Israel has denied the allegations, arguing that it has taken extraordinary precautions to minimize harm to civilians and that Hamas deliberately embeds its fighters and military infrastructure in civilian population centers in order to maximize civilian casualties.

In its filing, the U.S. argued that the ICJ genocide case is part of a “broader campaign” to encourage acts of terrorism against Jews and Israel.

In its filing, the Netherlands stated, “The Court should take account of starvation or the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid for the purpose of establishing specific intent, in particular when this occurs based on a concerted plan of a consistent pattern of conduct.”

Israel withheld humanitarian aid in March 2025 to pressure Hamas to fold, based on a calculation that enough aid remained in the Gaza Strip to sustain the population for six months, and resumed aid about 10 weeks later. While the calculation was correct, Israel failed to account for a “run on the banks” type of effect as Hamas stole the aid and depleted the U.N. stockpiles within a month. At the same time, the international community turned a blind eye to Hamas’ actions and blamed Israel for the ensuing crisis. Defenders of Israel have argued that the very fact that Israel made this calculation — although in hindsight it turned out to be a mistake — proves the opposite of intent to starve the population. In fact, as soon as food prices soared in July 2025, Israel halted its military operations and surged a massive amount of humanitarian into Gaza.

The U.S. reminded the ICJ that it must find “specific intent” and that “lowering the standard” can have international repercussions.

“Civilian casualties, even widespread civilian casualties, are not necessarily probative of genocidal intent, particularly when they occur in the context of an armed conflict involving urban combat,” the U.S. argued in its filing.