What Now, After the World Court Condemns As Unlawful Israel’s Entire 57-Year Occupation of the Palestinian Territories?
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In a devastating opinion issued on Friday (July 19), the International Court of Justice (one of the six organs of the United Nations, also known as the World Court) condemned as illegal Israel’s presence, and its behavior, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) ever since they were first militarily occupied in 1967. The case, “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” was initiated by a request from the UN General Assembly in 2022.
This was, of course, prior to the attacks by Hamas and other militants on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s extraordinarily violent and ongoing military response, in which, according to a recent assessment, it would be reasonable to expect that the final death toll, even if hostilities ended tomorrow, would be no less than 186,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Israel’s actions are subject to a separate case brought to the ICJ by South Africa, in which the Court first issued “provisional measures” against Israel in January, on the basis that what it has initiated and is engaged in is a “plausible genocide.”
What the Court decided, and how the judges voted
The 15-member court, whose judges are drawn from across the member states of the United Nations, declared, by eleven votes to four, that it was “of the opinion that the State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful,” and was also “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.” Judges from countries including Israel’s staunchest allies, the US and Germany, agreed, as they did for every other decision taken by the Court, along with the recently-appointed Lebanese President, Nawaf Salam, and judges from Australia, Brazil, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Somalia and South Africa.
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