The ICJ has called Israel’s occupation of the West Bank “illegal”, Friday, in a non-binding advisory opinion.
The UN’s top court on Friday said Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory was “illegal” and needed to end as soon as possible.
The advisory opinion of The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) is not binding, but it comes amid mounting concern over Israel’s war against Hamas sparked by the group’s brutal October 7 attacks.
“The court has found that Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian Territories is illegal,” ICJ presiding judge Nawaf Salam said, adding: “Israel must end the occupation as rapidly as possible.”
The ICJ added that Israel was “under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers” from occupied land.
Israel’s policies and practices including the building of new settlements and Israel’s continued maintenance of a wall between the territories “amount to annexation of large parts” of the occupied territory, it said.
‘Extreme danger’
The UN’s General Assembly asked the ICJ in late 2022 to give an “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.
The ICJ held a week-long session in February to hear submissions from countries following the request — supported by most countries within the Assembly.
During the hearings, most speakers called on Israel to end its 57-year occupation. They warned a prolonged occupation posed an “extreme danger” to stability in the Middle East and beyond.
But the United States said Israel should not be legally obliged to withdraw without taking its “very real security needs” into account.
Decision of lies
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the International Court of Justice had made a “decision of lies” on Friday by ruling Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal.
“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land -– not in our eternal capital Jerusalem, nor in our ancestral heritage of Judea and Samaria” (the occupied West Bank), Netanyahu said in a statement.
“No decision of lies in The Hague will distort this historical truth, and similarly, the legality of Israeli settlements in all parts of our homeland cannot be disputed.”
Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin hailed “a great day for Palestine” Friday after the UN’s top court ruled Israel’s decades-long occupation illegal.
“This is the highest judicial body in the world and it has presented a very detailed analysis of what is going on through Israel’s prolonged occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territory in violation of international law.”
Non-binding opinion
The ICJ rules in disputes between states. Normally, its judgements are binding but it has few means to enforce them.
In this case however, the opinion is non-binding, although most advisory opinions are in fact acted upon.
It handed down an opinion in 2004 declaring that parts of the wall erected by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory were illegal and should be torn down, but Israel has not complied with the ruling.
With AFP
