Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory ‘illegal’: U.N. top court
The Hindu
International Court of Justice rules Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory is “illegal” and needed to end as soon as possible; Netanyahu slams non-binding order a decision of lies
The U.N.’s top court on July 19 said Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory was “illegal” and needed to end as soon as possible.
The advisory opinion of The Hague-based International Court of Justice is not binding, but it comes amid mounting concern over Israel’s war against Hamas sparked by the group’s brutal October 7 attacks.
“The court has found that Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian Territories is illegal,” ICJ presiding judge Nawaf Salam said, adding: “Israel must end the occupation as rapidly as possible.”
The ICJ added that Israel was “under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers” from occupied land.
Israel’s policies and practices including the building of new settlements and Israel’s continued maintainance of a wall between the territories “amount to annexation of large parts” of the occupied territory, it said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the court had made a “decision of lies”.
“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem, nor in our ancestral heritage of Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank),” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement.