IN an historical move on July 19, The Hague–based International Court of Justice– while delivering its long-awaited advisory opinion regarding the legal consequences arising from Israel’s actions, policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and most profoundly, the crucial consequences of Israel’s conduct for other states, particularly more than 50 participating states , including Palestine –concluded that, “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and 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’’.
The request for an advisory opinion was adopted by the UNGA on 30 December 2022 and asked the most reverend 15 Judges of the World Court to address Israel’s “ongoing” or “continuing” policies and practices. With regard to the question of the prolonged occupation, the Court notes that question (a) concerns in part the legal consequences arising from Israel’s “prolonged occupation” of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In this regard, the Court notes that Israel’s occupation has lasted for more than 57 years. In order to answer this aspect of the question, the Court must turn to the relationship between Israel, as the occupying Power, and the protected population of the occupied territory, which is governed by the law of occupation.
As for the legality of the continued presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the (paras 259-264), the Court considers that the violations by Israel of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination have a direct impact on the legality of the continued presence of Israel, as an occupying Power. The following are prompt and vital injunctions laid down by the World Court in the said case. 1-The State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful;2-The State of Israel is under an obligation to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible;3-The State of Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory;4-The State of Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage cause to all the natural or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
5-All States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;6-International organizations, including the United Nations, are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and 7-The United Nations, and especially the General Assembly, which requested this opinion, and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
It goes without saying that the ICJ watershed advisory opinion is a glaring vindication of the rights of Palestinians —blatantly violated, usurped and undermined by the Israeli authorities and consequently the Palestinians have been subjected to cruelty and systematic human rights violations that are stemmed from Israel’s unlawful occupation. True to say that the occupation is a key pillar of an apartheid system that Israel has been profoundly using for endless years to dominate and oppress Palestinians. In addition, Palestinians have witnessed brutal demolition of their homes and the expropriation of their lands in the pretext of Jewish settlements, whiling facing denial of movement to their jobs. They are also denied to have an access to land, water and natural resources.
This is also true that Israeli authorities– since 1967– have illegally occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem( part of Palestine under the United Nations-determined division of historic Palestine in 1948) – running an unlawful apartheid system restricting the citizenship rights of Palestinians, hampering their free movement and stripping them of ancestral lands. Notably, between 1967 and 2005, Israel also directly occupied Gaza, and since 2007, Tel Aviv has imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the coastal enclave. It decides what food, water, medicine and other commodities where to go– thereby unlawfully stymieing the flow of humanitarian aid into a disease, food and war-stricken Gaza.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Legal Director Chris Godshall-Bennett said, “Fifty-seven years of occupation is enough. Today’s opinion recognizes what we have long known to be true—Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and aimed at the maintenance of an apartheid state from the river to the sea. We call on the United States to immediately comply with its obligations under international law as described in the International Court of Justice’s opinion here and to end all military and diplomatic aid to Israel.”
Needless to say, Israel has been flagrantly flouting international humanitarian law via an unwarranted impunity on a cataclysmic scale for the past nine months, thereby carrying out deadly and unlawful attacks during its onslaught in the occupied Gaza Strip that have claimed an unprecedented killing of more than 38000 Gazans. Moreover, it has also been escalating illegal land grabs in the occupied West Bank, and authorizing the construction of more and more settlement units, which are declared illegal by the ICJ. All the while, concerns have been profoundly raised by the international organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, including many states in the UNGA,, exclusively Pakistan and also espoused by the two UNSC members –China and Russia, that the only viable solution of this crisis lies in the establishment of an independent Palestinian State based on the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds as its capital.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law. He deals with the strategic and nuclear issues.
