ICJ Declares Israel Is Illegally Occupying Palestinian Territories in Gaza and West Bank and Must Leave

The United Nations’ International Court of Justice just released a long-awaited analysis and advisory legal opinion of Israel’s takeover of territories set aside for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over 57 years ago.

The opinion was requested by the General Assembly beginning over a year and a half ago. The request came shortly after the current far-right administration headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in the fall of 2022.

The investigation also began long before the current phase of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza. The review also began long before Israel’s violent and often bloody seizure of Palestinian properties on the West Bank escalated to never-before-seen levels of atrocity, partly under the guidance of current National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

In that 83-page opinion, after an analysis of multiple UN General Assembly and Security Resolutions, treaties, and other legally binding agreements, many of which directly involved the State of Israel itself, the Court declared Israel to have engaged in over a half century of illegal occupation of land set aside for the Palestinian people and that it should immediately withdraw from those territories.

The Court also took much of the rest of the world to task at the same time, for having continued to do normal business with Israel and often directly supporting the occupation through their actions. Doing so also violates much international law and goes directly against multiple UN General Assembly and Security Council rulings throughout Israel’s systemic occupation, slaughter, and mass destruction of a Palestinian society which had been allocated these territories theoretically with the full protection of international law behind them.

In announcing the opinion, Nawaf Salam, the president of the ICJ, said that Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands is an illegal and “wrongful act.”

“The court considers that the violations by Israel of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination have a direct impact on the legality of the continued presence of Israel, as an occupying power, in the occupied Palestinian territory,” he said.

“The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the occupied Palestinian territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful,” he added. “Israel has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible.”

The main findings of the Court were clear and concise. They are listed below in their entirety and come from §285 of the opinion.

“The Court:

Unanimously, Finds that it has jurisdiction to give the advisory opinion requested;

By fourteen votes to one, Decides to comply with the request for an advisory opinion;

By eleven votes to four, Is of the opinion that the State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful;

By eleven votes to four, Is of the opinion that the State of Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible;

By fourteen votes to one, Is of the opinion that the State of Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Historical background, an extensive review of past treaties involving how the Palestinian territories were first established, and further backing for the rights and privileges supporting Palestinian rights and the lack of Israeli authority there in numerous additional treaties, UN General Assembly, and Security Council decisions formed the basis for the most comprehensive analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian territorial dispute in history.

The earliest principal citation for Palestinian rights to its lands came in 1967. That happened in the so-called “Six-Day War” which pitted Israel against a coalition of Arab countries, led by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, over land rights outside of what were at the time far greatly reduced borders of Israel. The fighting, initiated as a shock attack by Israel, lasted only from June 5-10, 1967. But when the dust settled and treaties were drafted to conclude it, Israel’s borders had grown so it now formally claimed the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank as part of its own land.

While that is how Israel might prefer to have the historical record to sit, with it now having full dominion over the territories it seized at that time, that is not what the United Nations and much of the world ever accepted as a legal result of the war.

As noted by the Court in the current opinion, the UN Security Council voted as part of resolution 252 in 1968, the year after the Six-Day War ended, to reaffirm “that acquisition of territory by military conquest is inadmissible” under the UN charter, and for that reason alone the legal borders of Israel must be frozen as they were on June 4, 1967. The resolution states explicitly that it “[c]onsiders that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, including expropriation of land and properties thereon, which tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status”.

In 1977, the entire UN General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution condemning “the measures and actions taken by the Government of Israel, as the occupying Power, and designed to change the legal status, geographical nature and demographic composition of those territories”. It further found that “all such measures and actions taken by Israel in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity”.

Since Israel ignored that item passed by the entire Assembly and the UN Security Council failed to enforce Security Council resolution 252 by any means, in 1979 the UN Security Council passed resolution 446 making its position even stronger. In that one, it said Israel must “rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories”.

That too was ignored and not enforced.

The UN Security Council followed up again in 1980 with resolution 465, with further declared that “all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.

Most of that was ignored and not enforced either.

A brief glimmer of light in Israel’s complete disregard for the rule of law in this matter appeared in 1982. That was when Egypt and Israel signed a comprehensive peace treaty of their own, an agreement which was supposed to ease tensions between the countries. The framework for peace treaty was set in place during negotiation held at Camp David between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with U.S. President Jimmy Carter acting as a broker. A first version of the treaty based on those discussions was signed in 1979, then was updated in the 1982.

A key part of that agreement was Israel giving back the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

Since that time, despite the passage of numerous additional UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions crisply delineating Israel’s ongoing violation of international law over land it seized in the 1967, it has hung onto everything else it grabbed in that war. It has also made its rights clear, growing more forceful and terrifying in its occupation of the lands it illegally seized, with harsh consequences for any Palestinian who happened to be in the way of Israeli Defense Forces who want to push Palestinians out of their rightful homes and lands, to make way for Israeli citizens to take their place. People currently die by this policy every month and have for much of all the years since 1967, all while the UN condemned most of those actions.

As examples of these more recent resolutions the UN agreed to regarding these matters, the ICJ cited two which are particularly clear in their directives to what Israel must do regarding its unlawful actions here.

In 2015, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 70/15, which reads:

“Israel, the occupying Power, to comply strictly with its obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, and to cease all of its measures that are contrary to international law and all unilateral actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, that are aimed at altering the character, status and demographic composition of the Territory, including the confiscation and de facto annexation of land, and thus at prejudging the final outcome of peace negotiations, with a view to achieving without delay an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967.”

The UN General Assembly added to this in 2022, when it passed resolution 77/247. That directed:

“Israel, the occupying Power, cease all of its settlement activities, the construction of the wall and any other measures aimed at altering the character, status and demographic composition of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, all of which, inter alia, gravely and detrimentally impact the human rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination, and the prospects for achieving without delay an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides.”

It was that 2022 General Assembly resolution which called for the current Court investigation to begin, to set a legal precedent for the very first time by any international court weighing in on the issue of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It asked the court to review “ongoing violation” of the Palestinians’ inherent right to self-determination, “discriminatory laws” Israel has put in place which put Palestinians’ rights at below Israelis in many respects, and steps the Israeli government has taken to alter Jerusalem’s “demographic composition, character and status”. The issue of Jerusalem is especially critical for the Palestinians, who see Jerusalem as the capitol for Palestine in the future.

Throughout all, including the current International Court of Justice advisory opinion, the UN has been clear that Israel is an occupying force in lands it has no legal title to. It has also been clear that Israel needs not only to withdraw but also, in other resolution also passed in 1967, to pay reparations to those harmed by the occupation and to provide for the rebuilding of the damage it has caused.

As expected, this was an explosive opinion which drew strong responses from countries across the world.

Outside the ICJ court at The Hague in the Netherlands, Palestinian envoy Riyad al-Maliki, speaking for the Palestinian Authority, called the advisory opinion “historic”.

He said further that Israel should now be forced to comply with the terms outlined in the opinion, and that UN member states everywhere should take immediate actions of their own to enforce it.

“No aid. No assistance. No complicity. No money, no arms, no trade … no actions of any kind to support Israel's illegal occupation,” he explained.

“The content [of the opinion] is huge, it’s even beyond what we were expecting in terms of being so clear cut,” said Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni of the ICJ decisions.

“Of course it’s not a judgment, it’s an advisory opinion,” she added. “But it’s coming from the highest judicial organ, most respected judicial organ at the U.N.”

"It is a clear ruling on the side of Palestinians people’s right to justice, freedom and statehood," wrote Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi wrote on the social media platform X after the ruling came down. “Israel’s reaction to the ICJ ruling [which called the ruling “absurd’] and its Knesset resolution to prevent the fulfillment of Palestinian people’s right to freedom further proves Israel’s complete disregard to international law.”

“Israeli policies and practices are to be considered annexation of large parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” Norway’s Foreign Ministry responded in its own statement on X. “This is in violation of international law and must come to an end.”

Qatar, which has been host to the negotiations between Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza, issued a statement through its foreign ministry. It said that the ICJ decision “reflects the high provisions of international law that must be respected”.

Ireland’s Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Michael Martin said he plans now to work with the rest of the EU and the UN as a whole “to see how we can now bring to bear this authoritative opinion by the court to end … Israel’s illegal presence” in occupied Palestinian regions.

From Brazil, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed to this latest ruling as “reinforc[ing] the need for a two-state solution, with an independent and viable state of Palestine living side by side with Israel, in peace and security, within the 1967 borders, which include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

Hadja Lahbib, Belgium’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote in social media in defense of the ICJ arguments.

“Belgium will always stand up for the respect of international law,” he said.

In Indonesia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs commended the ICJ actions. It said the opinion “addressed the aspiration of Indonesia and the rest of the international community in delivering justice for the Palestinians”.

“Indonesia calls on the UN General Assembly and the Security Council to meet the request of the court by considering appropriate means and necessary steps to end Israel’s unlawful presence in Palestine,” it continued.

In Spain, the government issued a formal statement saying that the ICJ opinion “includes important pronouncements … on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and on settlements, among other aspects”.

“The government urges the UN and the international community to take into consideration the conclusions of the report and to adopt appropriate measures in this regard,” it added.

In the United Kingdom, where new Prime Minister Keir Starmer is being watched carefully for how his foreign policies might differ from those of his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, the Foreign OFfice came out seemingly strongly in support of what the ICJ said.

The Foreign Office declared first that it “respects the independence of the ICJ”. And while it explained it is considering the full content of the ICJ opinion before giving an official opinion of its arguments, the Office went on to say that it is “strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence”.

The response of the Israeli government was as expected, and diametrically opposed to what most world leaders and foreign ministries were saying. In a statement from Netanyahu’s office, it called the ICJ’s conclusions “fundamentally wrong” and showed no consideration for Israel’s side of the argument.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also slammed the decision directly shortly after that initial statement came down.

“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland,” Netanyahu wrote in a post on X, once again leveraging the long-standing argument that Israel’s right to the seized territories land is “historical” and trumps any argument about the human and other rights of the Palestinian people.

“No absurd opinion in the Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestoral [sic] home,” the prime minister added.

The United States response took the better part of a day to come out. But when it did it once again sided with Israel in its continued maltreatment, denial of basic human rights for, and slaughter of Palestinians on land that even it had agreed belonged to them dating back to multiple UN Security Council resolutions over the past fifty years.

“We are concerned that the breadth of the court’s opinion will complicate efforts to resolve the conflict and bring about an urgently needed just and lasting peace with two states living side by side in peace and security,” the U.S. Department of State said in a formal statement.

Neither the White House or the State Department gave any support to the ICJ’s opinion that Israel is an illegal occupying force, or that Israel is in any way accountable for its actions against the Palestinians on lands the United Nations declares still belong to them.

The full text of the International Court of Justice’s opinion is available to read here.