International Court of Justice says Israel\u2019s policies in the occupied Palestinian territory amount to annexation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Israel\u2019s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end \u201cas rapidly as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nawaf Salam, president of the ICJ in The Hague, read out the nonbinding advisory opinion issued by the 15-judge panel on Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestinian territory on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judges pointed to a wide list of policies \u2013 including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, use of the area\u2019s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians \u2013 all of which it said violated international law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court said Israel has no right to sovereignty of the territories, is violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and is impeding Palestinians\u2019 right to self-determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said other nations were obliged not to \u201crender aid or assistance in maintaining\u201d Israel\u2019s presence in the territory. It said Israel must end settlement construction immediately and existing settlements must be removed, according to a summary of the more than 80-page opinion read out by Salam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel\u2019s \u201cabuse of its status as the occupying power\u201d renders its \u201cpresence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful\u201d, the court said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIsraeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court\u2019s opinion was sought in a 2022 request from the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is the highest UN body for hearing disputes between states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem \u2013 areas of historic Palestine that the Palestinians want for a state \u2013 in a 1967 war. It has since built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and steadily expanded them. It also had settlements in Gaza before a 2005 withdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN and the vast majority of the international community consider the Palestinian territory as Israeli-occupied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Watershed moment\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki told reporters in The Hague that the ruling signalled a \u201cwatershed moment for Palestine, for justice and for international law\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe ICJ fulfilled its legal and moral duties with this historic ruling. All states must now uphold their clear obligations: no aid, no assistance, no complicity, no money, no arms, no trade, no nothing \u2013 no actions of any kind to support Israel\u2019s illegal occupation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said the ruling was a \u201csignificant step\u201d in the direction of ending the occupation and attaining the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination, statehood and the right of return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The right to return is a demand that Palestinians who were forced from their homes in the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war be allowed to return to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mansour said his team would study the entire opinion and \u201cdissect every sentence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will consult with an army of friends at the United Nations and in all corners of the globe,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe will produce a masterpiece of a resolution\u201d at the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the opinion as \u201cfundamentally wrong\u201d and one-sided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s office issued a statement in which it called the ruling a \u201cdecision of lies\u201d that distorted the truth and asserted that \u201cthe Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey Nice, a human rights barrister, told Al Jazeera that it will be hard for world leaders to completely \u201cdisregard\u201d the ICJ ruling even though it is nonbinding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is one part of the legal system saying enough is enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said it would also be \u201cdifficult for the interested, informed, concerned public not to say, \u2018It\u2019s time Israel put its house in order.’\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, said: \u201cThere is a lot of room for hope that this ruling will support a movement, an international movement, across the board in the West and elsewhere in the world in favour of more sanctions, more pressure on Western governments to put more pressure on Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a separate case brought by South Africa, the ICJ is considering allegations that Israel is committing genocide in its war on Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A preliminary ruling has already been made in that case with the court ordering Israel to prevent and punish incitement to genocide and to increase provisions of humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In May, the ICJ had also ordered Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, citing \u201cimmense risk\u201d to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians taking shelter there. But Israel has continued its attacks on Gaza, including Rafah, in defiance of the UN court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International Court of Justice says Israel\u2019s policies in the occupied Palestinian territory amount to annexation. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Israel\u2019s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end \u201cas rapidly as possible\u201d. Nawaf Salam, president of the ICJ in The Hague, read out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[91,61],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-icj","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}