Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), MrHisseinBrahimTaha, today, Monday 26 February 2024, at the International Court of Justice, The Hague, made oral pleading, on behalf of the OIC, where he reviewed the crimes committed by Israel, the occupying authority, against the Palestinian people, in particular, its war in the Gaza Strip. He also averred that Israel continues to pursue apartheid policy against the Palestinians.
At the beginning of the pleadings, the Secretary-General informed the ICJ judges that the OIC is an intergovernmental organization of 57member states, the collective voice of the Muslim world, which was established in the wake of the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (Al-Quds) in 1969. He added that among the objectives of the OIC charter is to support the rights of the Palestinian people to establish their sovereign state, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
In the pleadings made together with a team of legal counsels, the Secretary-General warned against the consequences of the war being waged by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip. He voiced the OIC’s condemnation of this aggression that has continued for close to 5 months and has claimed thousands of lives paving the way for widespread war crimes and genocide to be perpetrated.
The Secretary-General also expressed his strong condemnation of the crimes committed by Israel and the settlers in the West Bank and in Al-Quds Al-Sharif, including the refusal by Israel, the occupation authority, to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the numerous violations of the rules of international law resulting from the continued occupation. He lamented the inability of the Security Council to implement the international resolutions to stop the spiral of violence and realize justice for the Palestinian people.
The Secretary-General emphasized that a just, durable, and comprehensive peace on the basis of the two-state solution is the only way to guarantee security and stability for all the peoples of the region and to prevent cycles of violence and war. He called on all states to stop the exportation of weapons and ammunition to the occupation authorities as they are used by the army and settlers against the Palestinian people.
Mr. Taha appealed to the International Court of Justice to condemn the rapid settlement activities in East Jerusalem and the Israeli attacks against Muslim and Christian holy sites in the Al-Quds, expressing the hope that the legal opinion to be issued by the Court would be an opportunity for a reminder of Israel’s inevitable duty to end its occupation of the Palestinian territory.
The Secretary-General yielded the floor to the legal counsel of the OIC, Mrs. Chemillier-Gendreau, to present the legal aspects of the OIC’s submission on the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
The oral and written hearing sessions conducted by the International Court of Justice come in response to an earlier request that had been made by the United Nations General Assembly to the ICJ in 2022, requesting it to issue a legal opinion on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territory and its legal consequences.—PR
