The Hague, Netherlands - South Africa has filed an urgent application with the UN's International Court of Justice, asking it to order Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the devastated Gaza as famine looms.

South Africa said it went back to the ICJ to request the emergency measure in light of the "widespread starvation" in the Palestinian territory, according to statement from the court in The Hague.

In the statement, South Africa accuses Israel of "continuing egregious breaches of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."

South Africa lamented that at least 15 children died of starvation last week.

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At the end of December, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the Genocide Convention during ongoing Gaza war.

In an interim ruling, the UN court ordered Israel to take protective measures to prevent genocide, including doing everything to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid.

Instead, the number and food and aid trucks allowed through Israeli checkpoints dropped by half in February, all while a substantial number of Gaza's population is on the brink of catastrophic levels of starvation.

What's more, Israeli troops have regularly opened fire on people gathering in the hope of getting their hands on what little food makes it into the territory. In a horrific incident dubbed the "flour massacre," over 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured last week as soldiers shot at a crowd that surged towards a truck.

UN experts have repeatedly said that Israel is intentionally and systematically blocking aid to Palestinians in Gaza, creating "a situation of genocide."