Meltdown in Israel over the ICJ ruling
Israeli minister says Israel will ‘not move an inch’ after warning
In a post on X, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said Judea and Samaria is the land of our ancestors, referring to the Israeli name for the occupied West Bank.
“For 2,000 years we prayed to return there and no distorted decision of a biased and anti-Semitic court will move us an inch,” he said.
He further referred to the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as a mistake, saying Israel would not replicated it by ending its occupation of the West Bank.
‘Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land’: Netanyahu
The Israeli prime minister remains defiant after the World Court opinion, refusing to recognise occupied Palestinian territory.
“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land – neither in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” he said in a post on X, referring to the occupied West Bank using its Israeli name.
“No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth, and the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be disputed.”
Israel’s Lapid says ICJ ruling detached from ‘reality on the ground’
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has criticised the opinion issued by the ICJ, saying it is “detached, one-sided, tainted with anti-Semitism and a lack of understanding of the reality on the ground”.
“It only serves Islamic terrorism and the campaign against Israel,” Lapid said on X.
He blamed Netanyahu’s government, saying the international court’s ruling was “another political failure of a dysfunctional government”.
Israeli ambassador calls for ‘unprecedented actions’ against UN after ICJ ruling
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, has said those measures could include closing the UN complex in Jerusalem and deporting UN agency heads from Israel.
Israel has previously banned UN employees and officials, including the UN’s special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, Francesca Albanese.
Erdan added he has “no doubt” that the US would veto any security council resolutions introduced in the wake of today’s ruling, which said Israel’s settlement policies in the in the occupied West Bank are in breach of international law.
Several analysts have told Al Jazeera the ruling from the top court could make it more difficult for the US – which has veto power at the UN Security Council – to shield Israel from such resolutions.
Israel’s far-right ministers call for ‘sovereignty’ after ICJ ruling
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has reacted to the ICJ ruling, labelling the court’s decision as “clearly anti-Semitic and political”.
“We will not accept moral preaching from the court, as the time for rule and sovereignty has come,” he said, according to Israel Hayom.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X that the answer to the court’s ruling in the Hague was “Sovereignty now."
