World Court tells Israel it must ‘respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory’

By Annette Gartland on October 23, 2025

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has ruled that Israel, as an occupying power, has obligations under international human rights law “to respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

The court found that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had been inadequately supplied with aid and Israel was obliged to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory had the essential supplies of daily life.

The ICJ recalled Israel’s obligation “not to use starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare”.

The 11 judges ruled unanimously that Israel was obliged “to respect and protect all relief and medical personnel and facilities” and “to respect the prohibition on forcible transfer and deportation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

The court dismissed Israel’s allegations about the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The ICJ found that Israel had not substantiated its allegations that “a significant part” of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas or other terrorist factions.

The court recalled “the scale and urgency of the needs of the population of the Gaza Strip, and UNRWA’s unique and sustained connection with the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and said that, in the current circumstances, it was not possible to replicate the capacity of the United Nations, acting through UNRWA, “to ensure that the population of the Gaza Strip is adequately provided for”.

Israel expelled UNRWA’s international staff from the West Bank and prohibited UNRWA from entering the Gaza Strip. It blocked all relief to the Gaza Strip from March 2 to May 18, 2025. It then set up a new aid distribution system through the private ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ in May 2025.

Reading out the ICJ’s advisory opinion yesterday (October 22), the court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, said the UN and other international and humanitarian non-governmental organisations considered that the GHF didn’t align with humanitarian principles or meet people’s needs and put people at risk, and they refused to collaborate with it.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, described the GHF operation in Gaza, which has now been dismantled, as a “death trap”.

Judge Iwasawa said there was no evidence that UNRWA had discriminated with respect to nationality, race, religious belief, class, or political opinion during its distribution of humanitarian aid and the provision of services in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Indeed, there has been no suggestion that UNRWA has engaged in adverse distinction in its distribution of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere,” he said.

The judge added that Israel must respect the inviolability of the premises of the United Nations, including its field offices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and not interfere with the performance of their functions.

“Israel must respect the independence of United Nations personnel and the privilege and amenities necessary for the exercise of their functions,” he said.

It was important to reaffirm that a member of the United Nations had no right unilaterally to revoke the privileges and amenities accorded to the UN and its personnel, the judge added.

The ICJ’s advisory opinion was requested by the UN General Assembly. The hearings about the ‘Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory’ took place over five days from April 28 this year.

The court heard submissions by representatives of 39 states, the United Nations, and three other international organisations. Israel did not participate in the hearings and made its submission in a 38-page written statement.

The ICJ’s opinion is non-binding, but it carries significant weight.

Israel rejected the opinion, which it said was entirely predictable from the outset regarding UNRWA. It said it would not cooperate with the organisation.

“This is yet another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of ‘International Law’,” Israel’s foreign ministry tweeted.

Referring to a previous ICJ advisory opinion, Judge Iwasawa said the court recalled that Israel, as an occupying power, was not entitled to “sovereignty over or to exercise sovereign powers in any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.

He noted that the first paragraph of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides that individual or mass forcible transfers and deportations from occupied territory of protected persons within the meaning of that convention were prohibited, regardless of their motive.

Deportation or forcible transfer of the civilian population of an occupied territory, in whole or in part, was also prohibited under customary international law, he added.

The ICJ recalled that transfer may be “forcible” – and thus prohibited under the first paragraph of Article 49 – not only when it was achieved through the use of physical force, but also when the people concerned had no choice but to leave.

The Court further recalled that “all forcible transfers of protected persons are prohibited, including transfers within the occupied territory”.

Advisory opinion in detail

The ICJ said it was of the opinion that “the State of Israel, as an occupying Power, is required to fulfil its obligations under international humanitarian law”.

These included the obligation “to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies and services”.

While this ruling was decided unanimously, the ICJ’s vice-president, Judge Julia Sebutinde from Uganda, dissented from six of the court’s decisions.

She has dissented from numerous ICJ rulings in the past and the International Commission of Jurists has filed a formal request for an investigation into allegations related to her comments about Israel.

In a letter to Judge Iwasawa, the commission said that, should it be confirmed that Judge Sebutinde’s remarks had been accurately quoted, it considered that her continued role in the context of ongoing proceedings before the ICJ, such as South Africa v. Israel, “would be profoundly damaging to the Court’s impartiality, propriety, and integrity”.

Judge Sebutinde dissented from the court’s ruling that Israel was also obliged to agree to and facilitate “by all means at its disposal” relief schemes on behalf of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory “so long as that population is inadequately supplied, as has been the case in the Gaza Strip, including relief provided by the United Nations and its entities … and not to impede such relief”.

When reading out the ICJ judgement Judge Iwasawa (pictured below) said the ICJ found that the local population in the Gaza Strip had been inadequately supplied within the meaning of Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

“In such a situation, Israel, as the occupying power, is under an obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes under that provision,” he said.

The judges ruled unanimously that Israel had an obligation “to respect the right of protected persons from the Occupied Palestinian Territory who are detained by the State of Israel to be visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross” and “to respect the prohibition on the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.

Judge Sebutinde dissented from the ruling that, as an occupying power, Israel had an obligation under international human rights law “to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including through the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organisations and third States, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

She also dissented from the court’s following opinions:

that Israel has “an obligation to co-operate in good faith with the United Nations by providing every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory”,
that Israel has “an obligation under Article 105 of the Charter of the United Nations to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the United Nations, including its agencies and bodies, and its officials, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory”,
that Israel has “an obligation under Article II of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations to ensure full respect for the inviolability of the premises of the United Nations, including those of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and for the immunity of the property and assets of the Organization from any form of interference”, and
that Israel has an obligation under Articles V, VI and VII of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the officials and experts on mission of the United Nations, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Judge Iwasawa said the ICJ had concluded that there were no compelling reasons for it to decline to give the advisory opinion requested by the UN General Assembly.

He said that, during its military campaign, Israel had substantially restricted, and for significant periods of time, completely prevented the entry of aid, including food and water, into the Gaza Strip and its distribution to the Palestinian population “with catastrophic consequences for this population”.

He said the ICJ recalled that an occupying power had a general obligation to administer the territory for the benefit of the local population.

Israel’s obligations as an occupying power in relation to the presence and activities of the UN, other international organisations, and third states were governed by international humanitarian law, in particular the law of occupation, and by international human rights law, he added.

Judge Iwasawa said the ICJ emphasised that, when states took measures to combat terrorism, “they must comply with their obligations under international law, in particular their obligation to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law”.

He said the ICJ recalled that an occupying power had a general obligation to administer the territory for the benefit of the local population.

An occupying power’s obligation to agree to and facilitate the entry of humanitarian relief into an occupied territory under Article 59 didn’t displace its basic obligations to ensure the availability of food and medical supplies essential to the survival of the local population, he added.

The ICJ observed that Israel’s obligations under Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention were not dependent on the local population being “inadequately supplied” and therefore also extended beyond the Gaza Strip to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

In the court’s view, under these provisions, Israel was not only required to perform the “positive obligation” to ensure essential supplies to the local population “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”, but it was also under a “negative obligation” not to impede the provision of these supplies or the performance of services related to public health.