The United Nations’ top court on Monday opened a week of hearings into the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, with more than 50 states due to address the judges.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki spoke first at the proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, accusing Israel of “colonialism and apartheid” as he urged the court to declare that Israel’s occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state is illegal and must end immediately.
“For over a century, the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination has been denied and violated,” he said.
“More than 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem, are subjected to colonization of their territory and racist violence that enables it,” al-Maliki said.
Paul Reichler, a lawyer representing the Palestinians at the ICJ, later called Israel’s 56-year occupation of the territories “gravely unlawful” and said that under international law, “occupation can only be a temporary state of affairs.”
The session, expected to last six days, follows a request by the UN General Assembly in 2022 for a non-binding advisory opinion into Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. Judges are expected to take months to issue an opinion.
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While Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, it could increase political pressure over its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, since Oct.7.
Among countries scheduled to participate in the hearings are the United States, Israel’s strongest supporter, as well as China, Russia, South Africa and Egypt. Israel will not send a speaker, although it has sent written observations.
The hearings are part of a Palestinian push to get international legal institutions to examine Israel’s conduct, which has become more urgent since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel — during which 1,200 people were killed — and Israel’s military response.
They also come amid mounting concerns about an Israeli ground offensive against the Gaza city of Rafah, a last refuge for more than a million Palestinians after they fled to the south of the enclave to avoid Israeli assaults.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — areas that Palestinians want for a state — in the 1967 war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but, along with neighbouring Egypt, still controls its borders.
It is the second time the UN General Assembly has asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, for an advisory opinion related to the occupied Palestinian territory.
In July 2004, the court found that Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank violated international law and should be dismantled, though it still stands to this day.
Judges have now been asked to review Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation … including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”
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Since 1967, Israel has greatly expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank — an action Palestinians say compromises the creation of a viable Palestinian state. It has also annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized by most countries.
The General Assembly also asked the ICJ’s 15-judge panel to advise on how those policies and practices “affect the legal status of the occupation” and what legal consequences arise for all countries and the UN from this status.
The advisory opinion proceedings are separate from the genocide case that South Africa filed at the World Court against Israel for its alleged violations in Gaza of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
In late January, the ICJ in that case ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
The outcome of the advisory opinion would not be legally binding but would carry “great legal weight and moral authority,” according to the ICJ.