The International Court of Justice, the top judicial arm of the United Nations, said Friday that Israel should bring an end to its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, cease new settlement activity, evacuate existing settlements and pay reparations to Palestinians who have lost land and property.
The Hague-based court said that Israel is responsible for “systematic discrimination” against Palestinians based on race or ethnicity and breached the right of Palestinians to self-determination.
“Israel has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible,” said Nawaf Salam, the president of the court.
The searing advisory opinion issued by judges is not legally binding, but the decision could have expansive consequences in the international arena, including in trade and diplomacy. The court said that member states should not recognize as legal the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in occupied territory, nor should they render aid or assistance in maintaining it.
Israel declined to take part in hearings and described the proceedings as biased and an “abuse of international law and the judicial process.”
“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on X after the announcement. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”
The ruling marked the first time any international court has weighed in on the core issues related to the legality of Israel’s occupation of the territory it seized during the 1967 Six Day War with neighboring Arab countries.
The case was initiated by a December 2022 U.N. General Assembly resolution, but has since taken on added weight as the decades-long conflict has shifted into a period of unprecedented bloodshed. The Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack killed around 1,200 people in Israel, and the ensuing conflict in Gaza has become one of the century’s most destructive wars, so far claiming more than 38,000 Palestinian lives, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
It is the latest ratcheting up of international legal pressure against Israel. South Africa has lodged a separate case at the ICJ arguing that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, accusations Israel has vehemently denied. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is also seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Philippe Sands, a member of the Palestinian legal team, described Friday’s opinion as “hugely significant” and possibly even more so in the long term than the genocide case, as it addresses the “core of Israel’s policy.”
“Whatever Israel’s reaction, far-reaching legal determination will have significant political consequences, in heaping pressure on Israel and speeding up the process of recognition of the State of Palestine by ever more countries,” he said.
The court was asked to decide the impact of Israel’s occupation, denial of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, discriminatory laws and measures aimed at altering the demographic character and status of Jerusalem.
The questions that the court was asked to explore “represent a clear distortion of history,” Israel said in a statement submitted to the ICJ last year.
“In pointing a finger at one side only, the questions overlook thousands of dead and wounded Israelis who have fallen victim to murderous Palestinian acts of hatred and terrorism — acts that continue to endanger Israel’s civilians and national security on a daily basis,” the Israeli statement said. “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a cartoon narrative of villain and victim in which there are no Israeli rights and no Palestinian obligations.”
The ICJ said that Israel was responsible for restitution of property lost by “all natural or legal persons concerned,” or in cases where that is not possible, should pay compensation. It accused Israel of a “systematic failure” in preventing or punishing settler attacks in the West Bank, creating a “coercive environment” for Palestinians which is inconsistent with Israel’s responsibilities as an occupying power.
It said that Israel’s policies and practices “entrench” its control of illegally occupied territory, creating “irreversible effects on the ground” which essentially amount to the annexation of “large parts” of Palestinian territory.
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967 during a swift and resounding defeat of Arab armies led by Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Much international diplomacy on the conflict envisages a two-state solution based on 1967 borders — a stated goal of the Biden administration — but Israel has steadily expanded its settlements, drastically altering the territory.
Between November 2022 and October 2023, Israel “advanced or approved” 24,300 new housing units on occupied territory, Salam said. That included 9,670 in East Jerusalem.
Israel claims sovereignty of the entirety of Jerusalem, describing it as its “eternal” and “undivided capital.”
Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but retained control of its borders and ports, and the United Nations still considers the enclave occupied territory.
In the West Bank, Palestinians have been squeezed into ever-shrinking islands of land. Presenting the Palestinian case to the ICJ this year, the Palestinian Authority’s then-Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki accused Israel of “colonialism and apartheid.” He held up maps to show the drastic erosion of Palestinian territory.
During the court’s hearings this year, some 52 countries presented opinions, with most urging the court to declare Israel’s occupation illegal. Richard Visek, the legal representative of the United States, described the court’s task as “serious and difficult.” He said that any opinion should reinforce the prospect of a two-state solution and warned against a call for a “unilateral, immediate and unconditional withdrawal that does not account for Israel’s legitimate security needs.”
The ICJ was established after World War II to settle disputes between countries. The court is composed of 15 judges elected for nine-year terms by the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council.