The top UN court said Friday that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian Territories is “unlawful” and called on it to end and for settlement construction to stop immediately, issuing an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel’s rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago.
In a non-binding opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) pointed to a wide list of policies, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians, all of which it said violated international law.
The 15-judge panel said Israel’s “abuse of its status as the occupying power” renders its “presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.” It says its continued presence was “illegal” and should be ended as “rapidly as possible”.
It said Israel must end settlement construction immediately and that existing settlements must be removed, according to the 83-page opinion read out by court President Nawaf Salam.
Israel, which normally considers the United Nations and international tribunals as unfair and biased, did not send a legal team to the hearings. But it submitted written comments, saying that the questions put to the court are prejudiced and fail to address Israeli security concerns. Israeli officials have said the court’s intervention could undermine the peace process, which has been stagnant for more than a decade.
The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed a “historic” decision by the ICJ.
“The presidency welcomes the decision of the International Court of Justice, considers it a historic decision and demands that Israel be compelled to implement it,” it said in a statement on its official news agency shortly after the ruling was made public.
In response to the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the West Bank and East Jerusalem were part of the Jewish people’s historical “homeland”.
“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land – not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” he said in a post on X. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”
