International Court of Justice rules Israel's presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and should endBy Esther Linder with wires
Posted Yesterday at 12:27am, updated 21h ago21 hours ago
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Duration: 4 minutes 13 seconds4m 13s
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In short:
The UN's highest court has ruled Israel is in breach of international law by continuing to occupy Palestinian territories in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The court ordered Israel to evacuate all settlers immediately, stop all new settlement activity and pay reparations to the Palestinian people.
What's next?
Israel's prime minister immediately rejected the ruling, which requires third-party states such as the US to adhere to its principles.
The UN's highest court has ruled that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is unlawful, ordering the state to bring an end to its occupying presence as well as to make reparations for damage done.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) published an advisory ruling on Saturday, concluding that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law.
"This illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967," the court said in a statement.
The ruling also requires third-party states and organisations such as the United Nations to recognise the ruling and "not to render aid or assistance" in maintaining the occupation's status quo.
Israel has occupied parts of the Palestinian Territories since 1967 and has repeatedly enabled the building of settlements in the West Bank, which were previously declared unlawful under international law by the ICJ in a 2004 ruling.
Saturday's ruling is separate to the ongoing case brought by South Africa relating to Israel's invasion of Gaza, which canvasses the possibility of genocidal actions committed by the Israeli state against the Palestinian people.
Legality of occupation and use of force
"Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law," court president Nawaf Salam said, reading the findings of a 15-judge panel.
Israel, Rafah and the court ruling dividing legal minds
Palestinian civilians in Gaza hoped the ICJ's ruling that Israel must immediately halt all military actions in Rafah might represent a turning point, but it has quickly turned into an argument about legal interpretation and world order.
The court said Israel's obligations included paying reparations for harm caused by the occupation and "the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements".
The ICJ — the principal judicial body set up to rule over disputes between nation-states — was asked to consider how Israel's policies and practices affected the legal status of occupation and therefore whether the Israeli presence was legal.
The court's judges found that not only were Israeli settlements in breach of Israeli domestic law, but also the Geneva Convention through the transference of the existing civilian population into an occupied territory, which is a prohibited practice.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the opinion "historic" and urged states to adhere to it.
"No aid. No assistance. No complicity. No money, no arms, no trade … no actions of any kind to support Israel's illegal occupation," Palestinian envoy Riyad al-Maliki said outside the court in The Hague.
Israel's actions in the West Bank and other occupied territories amounted to systemic discrimination, the ICJ ruled in its opinion.(AP: Nasser Nasser)
In a swift reaction, Israel's foreign ministry rejected the opinion as "fundamentally wrong" and one-sided and repeated its stance that a political settlement in the region could only be reached by negotiations.
"The Jewish nation cannot be an occupier in its own land," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
The prime minister added in a post on X that the ruling was "absurd".
Court finds evidence of systemic discrimination
The case stems from a 2022 request from the UN General Assembly, predating the war in Gaza that began in October.
Israel voted against the resolution and has argued the court did not take into account the need to safeguard the security of the Israeli state.
The court's opinion covered a range of Israeli actions within the occupied territories, including access to water and agricultural land, the use of Israeli military courts to judge Palestinian civilians accused of crimes, and the ongoing dispute over East Jerusalem's status.
It found that a broad range of legislation and measures undertaken by Israel treated Palestinian people differently under international law, such as forced displacement, and that this treatment "cannot be justified" and was therefore a type of systemic discrimination.
The ICJ's ruling is separate from an action brought by South Africa regarding possible acts of genocide in Gaza.(Reuters: Piroschka van de Wouw)
The court also found Israel was in breach of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by way of acts comprising racial segregation and possible apartheid.
A number of states made written statements in the proceedings, with the majority asking the court to find the occupation illegal, while a handful, including Canada and Britain, argued it should refuse to give an advisory opinion.
The US had asked the court not to order the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and argued that the court should issue no decision that could hurt negotiations toward a two-state solution on a "land for peace" principle.
Pressure on Israel's international standing
Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote in a statement posted on X that the Australian government has been "firm and consistent" in considering Israeli settlement activity to be illegal, and "a significant obstacle to peace".
"We want to see concrete steps taken by Israel to cease the expansion of settlements and to respond to extremist settler activity," she said in acknowledging the independence and importance of the ICJ.
The minister outlined Australia would deny visas to anyone identified as an extremist settler.
"We are carefully considering the detail of the ICJ opinion to fully understand the conclusions reached," Senator Wong concluded.
The decision is non-binding and Israel is not compelled to follow the court's ruling, but makes a clear statement to allies such as the United States.
"I think in this case there has been such a strong statement from the court that we are going to see third states build pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories," Juliette McIntyre, an Australian expert on international courts such as the ICJ, told ABC's News Channel.
ABC/Reuters
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