U.N. court to hold hearings on legality of the occupation of Palestinian-claimed lands

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The United Nations’ highest court docket opens historic hearings Monday into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of lands hunted for a Palestinian state, plunging the 15 worldwide judges again into the guts of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian battle.

Six days of hearings are scheduled on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice, throughout which an unprecedented variety of international locations will take part, as Israel continues its devastating assault on Gaza.

Although the case happens in opposition to the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas struggle, it focuses as a substitute on Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Financial institution, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

Palestinian representatives, who converse first on Monday, will argue that the Israeli occupation is illegitimate as a result of it has violated three key tenets of worldwide regulation, the Palestinian authorized staff informed reporters Wednesday.

They are saying that Israel has violated the prohibition on territorial conquest by annexing massive swaths of occupied land, has violated the Palestinians’ proper to self-determination, and has imposed a system of racial discrimination and apartheid.

“We need to hear new phrases from the court docket,” stated Omar Awadallah, the pinnacle of the U.N. organizations division within the Palestinian International Ministry.

“They’ve needed to think about the phrase genocide within the South Africa case,” he stated, referring to a separate case earlier than the court docket. “Now we would like them to contemplate apartheid.”

Awadallah stated an advisory opinion from the court docket “will give us many instruments, utilizing peaceable worldwide regulation strategies and instruments, to confront the illegalities of the occupation.”

The court docket will doubtless take months to rule. However consultants say the choice, although not legally binding, may profoundly influence worldwide jurisprudence, worldwide assist to Israel and public opinion.

“The case will put earlier than the court docket a litany of accusations and allegations and grievances that are most likely going to be uncomfortable and embarrassing for Israel, given the struggle and the already very polarized worldwide surroundings,” stated Yuval Shany, a regulation professor at Hebrew College and senior fellow on the Israel Democracy Institute.

Israel isn’t scheduled to talk throughout the hearings, however may submit a written assertion. Shany stated Israel will doubtless justify the continued occupation on safety grounds, particularly within the absence of a peace deal.

It’s prone to level to the Oct. 7 assault through which Hamas-led militants from Gaza killed 1,200 folks throughout southern Israel and dragged 250 hostages again to the territory.

“There may be this narrative that territories from which Israel withdraws, like Gaza, can probably remodel into very severe safety dangers,” Shany stated. “If something, Oct. 7 underscored the normal Israeli safety rationale to justify never-ending occupation.”

However Palestinians and main rights teams say the occupation goes far past defensive measures. They are saying it has morphed into an apartheid system, bolstered by settlement constructing on occupied lands, that offers Palestinians second-class standing and is designed to keep up Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel rejects any accusation of apartheid.

The case arrives on the court docket after the U.N. Basic Meeting voted by a large margin in December 2022 to ask the world court docket for a non-binding advisory opinion on one of many world’s longest-running and thorniest disputes. The request was promoted by the Palestinians and opposed vehemently by Israel. Fifty international locations abstained from voting.

In a written assertion earlier than the vote, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan referred to as the measure “outrageous,” the U.N. “morally bankrupt and politicized” and any potential choice from the court docket “fully illegitimate.”

After the Palestinians current their arguments, 51 international locations and three organizations — the League of Arab States, the Group of Islamic Cooperation, and the African Union will tackle the panel of judges within the wood-paneled Nice Corridor of Justice.

Israel captured the West Financial institution, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip within the 1967 Mideast struggle. The Palestinians search all three areas for an impartial state. Israel considers the West Financial institution to be disputed territory, whose future must be determined in negotiations.

It has constructed 146 settlements, in line with watchdog group Peace Now, residence to greater than 500,000 Jewish settlers. The West Financial institution settler inhabitants has grown by greater than 15% within the final 5 years in line with a pro-settler group.

Israel additionally has annexed east Jerusalem and considers your complete metropolis to be its capital. An extra 200,000 Israelis stay in settlements inbuilt east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of town face systematic discrimination, making it tough for them to construct new houses or broaden current ones.

The worldwide group overwhelmingly considers the settlements to be unlawful. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, residence to town’s most delicate holy websites, isn’t internationally acknowledged.

It isn’t the primary time the court docket has been requested to provide an advisory opinion on Israeli insurance policies or to declare an occupation unlawful.

In 2004, the court docket stated {that a} separation barrier Israel constructed by way of east Jerusalem and elements of the West Financial institution was “opposite to worldwide regulation.” It additionally referred to as on Israel to instantly halt development. Israel has ignored the ruling.

In a 1971 case the Palestinian authorized staff is probably going to attract from, the court docket issued an advisory opinion discovering that the South African occupation of Namibia was unlawful, and stated that South Africa needed to instantly withdraw from the nation.

Additionally, late final month, the court docket ordered Israel to do all it will probably to stop demise, destruction and any acts of genocide in its marketing campaign in Gaza. South Africa filed the case accusing Israel of genocide, a cost that Israel denied.

South African representatives are scheduled to talk Tuesday. The nation’s governing celebration, the African Nationwide Congress, has lengthy in contrast Israel’s insurance policies in Gaza and the West Financial institution to the apartheid regime of white minority rule in South Africa, which restricted most Black folks to “homelands” earlier than ending in 1994.