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Israel rejects legitimacy of ongoing ICJ hearing on its occupation
With the hearings at the International Court of Justice over Israel’s occupation set to continue tomorrow, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has issued a statement saying it does not recognise the legitimacy of the ongoing proceedings. The statement said that the trial was “designed to harm Israel’s right to defend itself from existential threats”.
“The hearing in The Hague is part of a Palestinian attempt to dictate the results of a diplomatic settlement without any negotiations,” the statement added. “We will continue to fight this attempt, and the government and the Knesset are unified in rejecting his invalid trend.”
Palestinian minister tells ICJ Israel committing genocide in Gaza
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and has enforced a policy of apartheid against Palestinians for years, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki has said at the opening of six-day hearings on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
“Allowing this to continue is unacceptable,” Maliki said. “It is a moral and legal obligation to bring it to a prompt end.”
Unilateral withdrawal from occupied West Bank would lead to another October 7: Israel
Lior Haiat, spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of “hurling false accusations and creating a fundamentally distorted reality” at the ICJ hearing. He added in a social media post that the PA is “trying to turn a conflict that should be resolved through direct negotiations and without external impositions into a one-sided and improper legal process”.
Haiat invoked Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, saying those who called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank “without conditions and without negotiations are, in fact, calling for another massacre of Israeli citizens”.
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and Palestinians have engaged in direct negotiations with Israel for decades. But Palestinian rights advocates said the peace process has only entrenched the occupation without protecting the rights of Palestinians.
Israel’s rejection of ICJ hearing on occupation ‘not surprising’: AJ correspondent
Netanyahu has called an ICJ hearing on Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories “an unacceptable course of action”, part of a long history of Israel rejecting Palestinian efforts to exercise sovereignty. Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the Israeli government position is that “they will unilaterally reject accepting a Palestinian state, so it’s not surprising that this is being reiterated by the Israeli prime minister”.
“They’re also calling it a ‘media circus’, saying that it’s one-sided and the Israeli prime minister again saying he rejects its legitimacy, to give you an idea of the denial of Israel’s military occupation,” Salhut said. “So this is a reoccurring theme with the statements we get from the Israeli prime minister, and it’s not surprising in the slightest.”
Hearing on Israeli occupation could help peace process under international law
Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project think tank, says the likely response of Israel’s allies to this week’s proceedings at the ICJ is that the court should “keep its nose out” of an issue that they will argue is political and not legal. “Why is that so important? Because the question here is whether the peace process, the 30 years of agreements, … is something that should be untouched by international law,” Levy told Al Jazeera.
He said that while the court’s opinion will not be enforceable, it could be key in ensuring a future peace process is based on international law and not an effort to “formalise the existing apartheid reality”. Moreover, he said the legal proceedings would dial up the “squirm factor” for third parties in terms of their responsibilities as well as the consequences of being “complicit in this violation of international law and in guaranteeing impunity for the violating party, namely Israel”.
Smotrich urges Oslo Accords exit if ‘unilateral step taken against Israel’: Report
Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called on Netanyahu to withdraw from the Oslo Accords if “faced with any unilateral step taken against the state of Israel”.
Speaking at a Religious Zionism party meeting, Smotrich was quoted as saying that Israel could also “completely and immediately stop all funds transferred to the Palestinian Authority and to completely dissolve the Palestinian Authority”.
A look at how the arguments will move ahead and Israel’s separation wall
