The United Nations' highest court declared on Friday in its harshest ruling thus far on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there is against the law and should be lifted as soon as possible.
Although the opinion of the judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also often known as the World Court, isn’t binding, it carries weight under international law and will weaken support for Israel.
“Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the regime associated with them, were established and continue to be maintained in violation of international law,” President Nawaf Salam said as he read out the findings of a 15-member panel of judges.
The court stated that Israel's obligations included, amongst others, paying compensation and “evicting all settlers from existing settlements.”
In a swift response, the Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed the statement as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided, and reiterated its position that a political solution within the region could only be achieved through negotiations.
“The Jewish nation cannot be an occupier in its own land,” said a press release from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This opinion also angered settlers within the West Bank in addition to politicians resembling Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose national-religious party is near the settler movement and who himself lives in a settlement within the West Bank.
“The answer to The Hague – sovereignty now,” he said in a post on the social media platform X, apparently in a call to formally annex the West Bank.
Israel Gantz, chairman of the Binyamin Regional Council, one among the biggest settler councils, said the ICJ ruling was “contrary to the Bible, morality and international law.”
“No complicity”
The ICJ’s opinion also states that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states have an obligation not to acknowledge the occupation as legitimate or to offer “aid or assistance” to maintaining the Israeli presence within the occupied territories.
The United States is Israel's largest military ally and supporter.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry described the statement as “historic” and called on states to stick to it.
“No help. No support. No complicity. No money, no weapons, no trade… no actions whatsoever in support of Israel's illegal occupation,” Palestinian envoy Riad al-Maliki told the court in The Hague.
The case goes back to a request by the UN General Assembly for a legal opinion in 2022, i.e. before the War within the Gaza Strip which began in October.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – areas of historic Palestine that the Palestinians claim for a state – within the 1967 Middle East war and has since built and steadily expanded settlements within the West Bank.
Israeli politicians argue that the territories usually are not legally occupied because they’re on disputed land. However, the United Nations and a lot of the international community consider them occupied territory.
In February greater than 50 states demonstrated The Palestinians presented their views in court, with Palestinian representatives urging the court to find out that Israel must withdraw from all occupied territories and evacuate illegal settlements.
Israel didn’t take part in the oral hearings but submitted a written statement telling the court that providing an advisory opinion could be “harmful” to efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The majority of the states involved called on the court to declare the occupation illegal. Just a few states, including Canada and the United Kingdom, argued that the court should refuse to issue an advisory opinion.
The United States had asked the court to not order an unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories.
The United States argued that the court shouldn’t make a call that might harm negotiations on a two-state solution based on the “land for peace” principle.
In 2004, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion that the Israeli separation wall around a lot of the West Bank was illegal and that Israeli settlements violated international law. Israel rejected this ruling.
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