The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague yesterday (Friday) issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and should be brought to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

The court said Israel was under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Israel also had the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to “all the natural or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, the ICJ added.

The court also stated that international organisations, including the United Nations, were under an obligation not to recognise as legal “the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

It said the United Nations, and especially the General Assembly and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring the occupation to an end as rapidly as possible.

Delivering the court’s ruling, ICJ president Judge Nawaf Salam said: “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.”

Salam said this illegality related to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967.

Yesterday’s ruling follows six days of hearings at the ICJ in February in response to a request by the General Assembly of the United Nations for an advisory opinion “in respect of the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.

The State of Palestine, 49 member states of the United Nations and three international organisations – the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the African Union – presented oral statements to the court.

Salam said yesterday that the ICJ had concluded that there were no compelling reasons for it to decline to give the opinion requested by the General Assembly.

During the hearings in February, representatives of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Hungary, Zambia, and Fiji urged the ICJ to decline the General Assembly’s request.

Canada did not make an oral submission, but said in its written statement that there were “compelling reasons” for the ICJ to decline the request.

Israel said in a written statement sent to the ICJ in July last year that it would not present oral arguments during the hearings. It said that the request for the ICJ’s advisory opinion “perversely seeks to circumvent the lack of Israel’s consent”.

It said there were “glaring failings” in the questions brought before the court and a risk of the ICJ proceedings “fundamentally delegitimizing the established legal framework governing the conflict and any prospect of negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians which, Israel says, remains “the only viable path to peace”.

In response to yesterday’s ICJ ruling, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland. No absurd opinion in The Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.”

Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, tweeted that the ICJ’s advisory opinion was “fundamentally warped, one-sided, and wrong”.

Spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oren Marmorstein said on X that the court’s opinion “injects the politics of the corridors of the UN in New York into the courtrooms of the ICJ in The Hague”.

He tweeted that it should be clarified that the ICJ’s opinion is an advisory opinion and is not legally binding.

Palestine’s Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, said after the delivery of the court’s opinion: “This is a watershed moment for Palestine, for justice, and for international law.”

He added: “The Palestinian people have endured unbearable suffering and injustice for decades. This ruling is a vindication of their steadfastness and perseverance. This right must no longer be denied or deferred.”

Salam said yesterday that, in order for the ICJ to give an advisory opinion, it was not necessary for it to make findings with regard to specific incidents allegedly in violation of international law.

He said the court needed only to establish the main features of Israel’s policies and practices, and, on that basis, assess the conformity of these policies and practices with international law.

Salam (pictured below) said the ICJ considered that the subject matter of the General Assembly’s request was not only a bilateral matter between Israel and Palestine, but was of particular interest and concern to the United Nations and that giving the opinion requested did not have effect of circumventing the principle of consent to judicial settlement.

The General Assembly had asked the ICJ to take account of measures adopted by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967, but the court was not precluded from having regard to facts predating the occupation, to the extent that this was necessary for the proper discharge of its judicial function, Salam said.

He said the ICJ considered that the Oslo accords could not be understood to detract from Israel’s obligations under the pertinent rules of international law applicable in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

It was the view of the ICJ that to seek to acquire sovereignty over an occupied territory, as shown by the policies and practices adopted by Israel in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, was contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations “and its corollary principle of the non-acquisition of territory by force”, Salam said.

The ICJ considered that Israel was not entitled to sovereignty over, or to exercise sovereign powers in any part of, the Occupied Palestinian Territory on account of its occupation, Salam said. Israel’s security concerns could not override the principle of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force, he added.

Salam cited forcible evictions, extensive house demolitions. and restrictions on residence and movement, which, he said, left little choice to members of the Palestinian population to leave their area of residence.

“The nature of Israel’s acts, including the fact that Israel frequently confiscates land following the demolition of Palestinian property for reallocation to Israeli settlements, indicates that its measures are not temporary in character and therefore cannot be considered as permissible evacuations,” he said.

“In the court’s view, Israel’s policies and practices are contrary to the prohibition of forcible transfer of the protected population under the first paragraph of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Salam said that a broad array of legislation adopted and measures taken by Israel in its capacity as an occupying power treated Palestinians differently on grounds specified by international law.

“As the court has noted, this differentiation of treatment cannot be justified with reference to reasonable and objective criteria nor to a legitimate public aim,” he said.

“Accordingly, the court is of the view that the régime of comprehensive restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory constitutes systemic discrimination based on, inter alia, race, religion, or ethnic origin …”

This, Salam said, was in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Salam said the ICJ was of the view that Israel’s unlawful policies and practices were in breach of Israel’s obligation to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

“As a consequence of Israel’s policies and practices, which span decades, the Palestinian people has been deprived of its right to self-determination over a long period, and further prolongation of these policies and practices undermines the exercise of this right in the future,” he said.

On the basis of the evidence before it, the ICJ considered that Israel’s use of the natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was inconsistent with its obligations under international law, Salam added.

The court concluded that Israel’s policy of exploitation of natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was inconsistent with its obligation to respect the Palestinian people’s right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources, he said.

Only the finding that the ICJ had jurisdiction to give the advisory opinion requested received a unanimous vote from all 15 judges. The court’s vice-president, Justice Julia Sebutinde from Uganda, voted against all of the other rulings. In the case of several of the other decisions, she was joined by two or three other members of the panel.

The ICJ’s finding that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was unlawful had the support of 11 of the judges.

The case about which the ICJ gave its advisory option yesterday is separate from the one brought to the ICJ by South Africa, in which South Africa alleges that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention in Gaza.

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