First statements at ICJ very damaging for Israel
So far the statements made in front of the 15 judges of the ICJ have been absolutely damaging for Israel. South Africa was focusing on the apartheid regime that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people, calling it a colonial system, and all three speakers demanded the court put an end to the occupation and have illegal settlements removed. They also called for reparations for the Palestinian people to be put in place.
They also talked about the bloody assault taking place in Gaza. South Africa played a key role in an earlier case brought to the same court accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel was given provisional measures to avoid such a scenario.
South Africa, Algeria key at ICJ hearing
Ambassador Vusi Madonsela of South Africa, right, attends the hearing
South Africa and Algeria are probably the most relevant countries to speak before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) because they are the predecessors of the colonial reality that we see unravelling in Israel and Palestine. They’ve scored big against colonialism in the past, against what was the horrendous reality in the developing world. Therefore, they have a lot to teach us.
What is taking place in Palestine resembles so much what took place in their homelands. Algeria suffered 132 years of occupation and ended up paying the price with the lives of more than a million people. South Africa endured almost five decades of apartheid, another crime against humanity.
‘When will Israel’s violations end – if not now?’
Vusi Madonsela, ambassador of South Africa to the Netherlands, began the first arguments challenging Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories:
- South Africa cannot overstate the importance of this advisory opinion for the Palestinian people.
- The occupation alone has lasted for more than 50 years. It has been conducted in defiance of international law without pushback from the international community.
- Therefore, we must ask, when will Israel’s decades-long impunity for widespread and systematic rights violations and norms of international law end – if not now?
- Over the past 106 days, the world has watched in horror the relentless attacks on Gaza. The ferocity of violence in Israel’s latest military campaign against Gaza and its flouting of international law – including an order from this court on January 26 – is the clearest indication that Israel considers itself unrestrained in its actions against Palestinians.
- Its actions occur with even more depravity and bloodshed.
Palestinians have an inalienable right to self-determination
Pieter Andreas Stemmet, Acting Chief State Law Adviser at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, stated that South Africa will now focus on the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
- The inalienable right of Palestinians to self-determination has been recognised by the UN in numerous occasions.
- The expansion of the settlement activity by Israel is a violation of Article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention to which Israel is a party.
- Regarding the question of whether apartheid is being perpetrated by Israel, it’s appropriate to recall that this court ruled in the Namibia vs South Africa that enforcing exceptions and limitations exclusively based on the grounds of race, colour or descent constitutes the denial of fundamental rights and is in violation of the principles of the UN charter.
- The extent of the violations by Israel is well documented. The prohibition of apartheid is binding on all states, including Israel.
- Just as South Africa’s prolonged presence in Namibia was found to be illegal, we now turn to the legal consequences for Israel of the continued occupation of Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem.
Israel ‘apartheid’ against Palestinians worse than in South Africa
Israel is applying an extreme version of apartheid in the Palestinian territories than experienced in South Africa before 1994, its ambassador to the Netherlands says. “We as South Africans sense, see, hear and feel to our core the inhumane discriminatory policies and practices of the Israeli regime as an even more extreme form of the apartheid that was institutionalised against Black people in my country,” Vusimuzi Madonsela told the ICJ.
“It is clear that Israel’s illegal occupation is also being administered in breach of the crime of apartheid… It is indistinguishable from settler colonialism. Israel’s apartheid must end.”
Algeria presents its arguments
Algeria’s legal counsellor Ahmed Laraba makes his country’s case:
- The manifestations and consequences of a prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories, it is an ambiguous notion if ever there was one.
- The notion of occupation found its basis in Article 42 of The Hague ruling of 1907 and is not contested as the court recalls in paragraph 89 of its opinion on the construction of the wall.
- Without dwelling on the legal regime of the occupation, it is important to highlight its most fundamental aspects. It was devised as a temporary regime to manage the end of hostilities and the conclusion of a peace treaty.
- A peaceful relationship between the occupier and the occupied, which is the idea of prolonged occupation, was totally inconceivable by the drafters of the time.
- A violent contrast exists between theoretical appearances sketched out by Israel with a very broad brush and the reality Algeria considers.
- The situation created in 1948 and continuing shows up starkly in the misuse and abuse of the concept of occupation by Israel in occupied Palestinian territories.
- The establishment of Israeli legal rules in the West Bank and successive phases of planned military occupation is followed by the beginning of colonisation.
- The most striking feature of the West Bank resides in the spectacular increase in the establishment of settlements between 2012 and 2022, the numbers went from 520,000 settlers to 700,000.
- All historians of colonisation stress the compelling importance of the dispossession of land in establishing an accelerated colonisation. That to Algeria is a particularly striking example.
The Netherlands presents its arguments
The representative for the Netherlands, René JM Lefeber, presented his arguments before the ICJ.
- The court has jurisdiction to give an advisory opinion.
- All people have a right to self-determination as per the UN Charter. There is a duty to abstain from actions that contravene this right.
- The right to self-determination is applicable to people under occupation and colonial domination, as well as people living in independent states.
- A prolonged occupation obstructs the principle of self-determination.
- The occupation of foreign territory can be legitimate in response to an armed attack, provided the principles of necessity and proportionality are respected.
- An occupation that fails to fulfil these requirements may lose its legal basis and, therefore, violate the prohibition of the use of force.
More on the remarks made by Netherlands’ representative René JM Lefeber.
- The occupying power shall not deport or transfer part of the population in the territory it occupies, which constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
- Once an occupation has occurred, the occupying power has the duty to respect and protect civilians.
- A serious breach of a peremptory norm should be dealt with in the context of the United Nations, but if this fails, states shall cooperate to bring the unlawful situation to an end.
- They shall not recognise as lawful the situation created by such a breach and shall not render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation.
Israel treats Palestinians as ‘disposable objects’: Saudi envoy
Ziad al-Atiyah, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, says Israel must be held accountable for ignoring international law as its actions are indefensible.
- The kingdom expresses its profound revulsion for the killing of civilians in Gaza and Israel’s protracted impunity.
- Israel’s argument that it has a right to self-defence distorts reality. Depriving the Palestinian population of all means of survival is not justified under any circumstances.
- Israel is dehumanising Palestinians and treating them as disposable objects. It is committing genocide against the Palestinian population.
- The court has jurisdiction in this matter and has a duty to issue an opinion. The arguments against the court’s jurisdiction do not hold water.
- Israel continues to ignore the calls for a ceasefire as well as the court’s provisional measures. More generally, it is in continuous breach of numerous UN resolutions and it is making it impossible to establish a Palestinian state by expanding illegal settlements and expelling Palestinians from their homes, despite the repeated condemnation of this practice by the UN Security Council.
More from Saudi Arabia’s envoy Ziad al-Atiyah
- Israel has committed the most egregious violations of its fundamental international obligations regarding its treatment of the Palestinians.
- It has ignored multiple UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions condemning its conduct. These violations include measures preventing the Palestinian people from exercising their right of self-defence through various policies and practices.
- These include the continuing illegal settlement of the occupied territory, the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, and theft of Palestinian property.
- Israel makes no secret of its intention to maintain and expand illegal settlements.
- Israel’s 2018 Basic Law shows its disdain for the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination by declaring the holy city of Jerusalem complete and united as Israel’s capital.
Arguments presented by Bangladesh
The representative of Bangladesh, Riaz Hamidullah, stressed the principle of self-defence does not offer legal grounds for prolonged occupation.
- Israel’s occupation runs counter to three basic tenants of international law: the right to self-determination; the prohibition to acquire territory by force; and the prohibition of racial discrimination and apartheid.
- As mandated by international law, any occupation must be temporary and acquiring territory is illegal. Israel’s prolonged occupation, coupled with the acquisition of territory, violates international law.
- The right to self-defence does not justify the violation of international law, including the right to self-determination. Israel cannot rely on self-defence to justify its actions.
- There is broad consensus that Israel, through its denial of self-determination of the Palestinian people, has violated peremptory norms of international law while also hindering the prospects for a just and lasting peace.
The representative of Bangladesh recommended that Israel and the international community act as follows:
- Israel must cease all acts preventing the exercise of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, including signing discriminatory laws and measures. It must also withdraw its forces and dismantle illegal structures of occupation.
- Israel must provide reparations for the damage caused and guarantee non-repetition.
- All states must ensure the cessation of any legal impediment to the right of self-determination and uphold the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
- States must not recognise the illegal situation resulting from Israel’s wrongful acts, including in East Jerusalem, and must not provide aid or assistance. Cooperation is essential to ensure Israel’s abidance by international law.
- The UN Security Council should consider further action to end the occupation. Immediate action is necessary to end the system of apartheid.
Belgium: Israel’s settlements aim to bring permanent demographic change
Belgium’s legal expert Vaios Koutroulis focused on Israel’s settlement policy and its legal implications.
- Belgium condemns the use of violence against the Palestinian population and wishes to highlight Israel’s obligations to put an end to violence and bring to justice the perpetrators.
- Israel’s settlement policy aims to bring about a permanent alteration of the demographic composition of the Palestinian territory and the status of the Palestinian territory itself.
- This policy is in violation of fundamental rules of international law: the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force; the principle of self-determination.
- The establishment of settlements is also linked to the establishment of two different systems: one for the settlers and one for the Palestinian population.
- Israel must end all settlement activity and restore all property expropriated. Third states must not recognise the situation as legal, must not render aid and must cooperate to end violations.
Belize argues Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza has been ongoing
Philippa Webb, a law professor at King’s College London, has now taken the floor, with her arguments focusing on apartheid and its consequences with respect to self-determination. She notes that:
- Apartheid is the strongest concentration of racist concepts put into action. It goes hand in hand with Israel’s violation of the right to self-determination.
- It is impossible to realise a people’s right to self-determination within an institutionalised regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination.
- The dehumanising nature of apartheid suppresses the equality, identity and dignity at the heart of self-determination.
- It is indisputable that the Palestinians are a racial group.
- Under Israeli law, the separate identity of the Jewish race is afforded a privileged status, and the right to exercise self-determination in the state of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.
- Israel has long-standing discriminatory laws, policies and practices that affect only Palestinians and are designed to benefit exclusively and maintain the dominance of Israeli Jews on both sides of the Green Line.
- Many measures are designed to fragment the Palestinian people and to separate Palestinians from Israeli Jews.
- In the West Bank, there are the separation wall, restrictive permit requirements, checkpoints, and segregated roads. This creates what the Israeli army officially calls sterilisation – areas and roads closed to Palestinians – and Hebronisation, meaning the strategy of repression and segregation is spreading.
- Gaza is under siege and blockade. Millions of Palestinians are confined to ever-smaller strips of land, the longest and most complete siege of the greatest number of people in modern history.
- The whole of Gaza has become an impoverished, desperate ghetto.
- Since 1967, Israel has detained one million Palestinians, including tens of thousands of children.
Assad Shoman, a representative of Belize, has told the ICJ that “Palestine must be free”. He also said:
- The Palestinian people have an inalienable right to self-determination and complete independence, which has always been systematically denied to them.
- Israel has used systematic manipulation of negotiations to undermine the presumed objectives and ensured that the Palestinian people are prevented from ever exercising that right.
- Israel cannot be permitted to continue flouting one of the most fundamental principles of the international law with impunity. Impunity breeds inhumanity.
Taking Belize’s remarks forward, advocate Ben Juratowitch argues that the Gaza Strip remains occupied despite the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the removal of settlers in 2005. He notes:
- Israel was occupying Gaza before October 7 and is doing so now. Gaza is under Israeli occupation and has been since 1967.
- A state can be occupying a territory even if it has no more troops in it, if it can at any time assume its physical control and has the capacity to send troops within a reasonable amount of time to make its authority felt.
- Israel’s recent conduct is the continuation and intensification of its long-term control over, violence against and incursions into Gaza.
- Israel’s occupation is, at the present time, not necessary or proportional. Israel signed peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt and should not be required to maintain its presence in Gaza or the West Bank.
- Israel’s use of force in Gaza is plainly not a necessary or proportional response to the October 7 attack.
Israel’s discriminatory actions result in consequences and obligations for all states: Bolivia’s representative
Roberto Calzadilla Sarmiento, Bolivia’s ambassador in the Netherlands, has told the ICJ that his country considers “the ongoing illegal occupation [of the Palestinian Territories] to be in violation of international law”.
- Bolivia considers the discriminatory measures of a colonial nature imposed by Israel prior to the legal status of the occupation are aimed at a dispossession of the Palestinian population, to the denial of their rights by altering the demographic composition, character and the status of the city of Jerusalem.
- The ongoing situation results in consequences and obligations for all states and for the United Nations.
- Bolivia considers that continuously depriving and denying the Palestinian peoples’ right to self-determination for 75 years, Israel is in a clear breach of its international obligations.
- The transfer of 750,000 Israeli settlers and building of settlements in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank have been deliberately carried out with intention of acquiring the territory through annexation, including through colonisation, confinement and the fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian Territories.
‘Israeli occupation must be considered illegal in its entirety’
Continuing Bolivia’s oral argument, Roberto Sarmiento notes that the international community has repeatedly condemned Israel’s actions, including through the United Nations, insofar as they hinder the exercise of the Palestinian right to self-determination, including the construction of illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, the construction of the separation wall in the West Bank and other measures that affect the daily lives of Palestinians.
Sarmiento also says:
- Israel’s occupation both in its means and its purpose does not fall within the framework of legality established in international law.
- The de facto annexation of territory imposes restrictions on where Palestinians can live and travel, as well as a racially discriminatory legal and administrative regime that favours Israeli settlers and deprives Palestinians of their most basic rights.
- The conclusion is unavoidable that Israel has used its prolonged occupation as a pretext to pursue its illegal objective of annexing the occupied Palestinian territories in violation of the charter of the United Nations.
- Therefore the Israeli occupation must be considered illegal in its entirety.
‘Israel obliged to stop atrocities, genocide in Gaza’
In conclusion, Bolivia’s representative says the policies and practices of the Israeli occupation in Palestinian territory are illegal and have legal consequences with obligations for Israel and other states, as well as the UN, since they violate the rights of Palestinians as people and of Palestine as a state.
He adds:
- Bolivia considers that Israel as the state responsible for this violation of international law must cease de jure and de facto acts and policies that prevent the exercise of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.
- It must also fulfill its obligation to end the situation of illegal occupation and its discriminatory policies and practices designed to maintain and establish dominance in a peaceful, immediate and unconditional manner.
- Israel is also obliged to stop the development of the atrocities of genocide committed more recently in Gaza and to comply with the provisional measures set forth in the order of this court on January 26, 2024.
- As the occupying power, it must assume responsibility for 76 years of occupation, and for the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and the ongoing atrocities of the crime of genocide.
What Israel is saying about the UN court proceedings
Israel rejects accusations of committing “apartheid” against the Palestinians and usually dismisses UN bodies and international tribunals as unfair and biased against it. Israel isn’t making an oral statement during the hearings, taking place against the backdrop of the war in Gaza that has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians.
Israel sent a five-page written statement saying an ICJ advisory opinion would be “harmful” to attempts to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. The hearings are “designed to harm Israel’s right to defend itself from existential threats”, and “dictate the results of a diplomatic settlement without any negotiations”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
‘Not interesting enough’: Israel’s media ‘ignores’ ICJ hearings
Gideon Levy, a political analyst and contributor to the Haaretz newspaper, says coverage of the case at the UN’s top court of Israeli occupation “has been totally ignored” in Israel. “Israel’s media is helping to ignore it. Whatever is inconvenient or unpleasant to Israel you can always trust the Israeli media to hide it from its viewers and readership,” Levy told Al Jazeera.
“Yesterday, all kinds of important international channels broadcast the hearing live and fully. In Israel, nothing. No TV stations saw it as important or interesting enough. Same is the coverage today, very poor, very small, undermining it.”
My country disappoints yet again
Canada bows out of Israeli occupation arguments
Instead of 11 countries having their oral arguments here at the Peace Palace today it’s going to be only 10. Canada has pulled out at the last minute, we just heard from the court.
It is not unusual for a country to pull out. But we haven’t heard their motivation. This is the largest case ever at the International Court of Justice with more than 50 countries providing arguments.
