BRUSSELS (AN) – The International Court of Justice determined that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law and called on it to end its presence “as rapidly as possible.”
The U.N. top court's historic advisory opinion on Friday said Israel should pay full reparations for damages caused over the 57-year occupation. That would include the right to return of land, assets, and cultural property seized from Palestinians since 1967.
Its opinion said the policies enforced by Israel as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem violated Palestinians' right to self-determination and breached international laws against apartheid, racial segregation, annexation, and forced displacement.
Justices cited Israel's systematic “confiscation” of Palestinian lands and diversion of its natural resources in ways that harmed the local populations, along with the imposition of Israeli law on Palestinians and evidence that the government's settlement policies were meant to be permanent, amounting to annexation.
"Israel's assertion of sovereignty and its annexation of certain parts of the territory constitutes a violation of the prohibition of acquisition by force," the court said.
The Hague, Netherlands-based ICJ provided the non-binding opinion in response to a 2022 request from the United Nations General Assembly resolution. The opinion covers Israel's actions as an occupying power since 1967 but does not include the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 which has been catastrophic for Palestinians.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will transmit the opinion to the General Assembly, which will decide how to proceed in next, his deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said. Guterres emphasized that "the only viable path" is for Israel and Palestine to live peacefully side-by-side, said Haq, within secure and recognized borders on the basis of pre-1967 lines, with both sharing Jerusalem as the capital.
The finding that Israel is perpetrating apartheid and racial segregation puts the court in line with findings by independent U.N. experts and human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
“The court’s conclusion on this point is especially important given the reluctance of some internationalists to refer to the particularly heinous crime of apartheid outside the context of South Africa,” ICJ's president, Nawaf Salam, wrote in support of the opinion.
He stressed that actions constituting apartheid under international law need not “fully reproduce” the South African policies on which the Apartheid Convention was based. The South African experience “cannot mean that for any policy to be characterised as constituting apartheid it must fully reproduce the policies and measures implemented in South Africa at that time,” he argued.
“Such an approach would effectively deprive the Apartheid Convention of any effect today, since it is doubtful that any state in today’s world would openly claim to pursue a policy of racial segregation as practiced in South Africa at the time the convention was adopted,” Salam said.
Israel began occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip after defeating Arab armies led by Egypt, Jordan and Syria during the 1967 Six Day War, and it has since expanded its settlements.
ICJ's opinion echoes its 2004 advisory opinion on Israel's West Bank barrier, which it said was illegal and should be removed. Nearly 20 years later, the wall still stands.
The ICJ opinion on Israel's occupation is separate from the case brought by South Africa in the same court accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. While a ruling in the genocide case is expected to take years, the court ordered Israel to immediately withdraw from Gaza, citing "hundreds of thousands of people at imminent risk of death."
Separately, the ICC is prosecuting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, including starvation tactics and blocking aid.
The court dismissed Israel's objections to it issuing an opinion, rejecting claims filed in a letter to the ICJ that the request was "an abuse of international law and the judicial process" and a "distortion of the history and present reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Ahead of the opinion, Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to press ahead with imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank regardless of what the court determined. As Salam read the ruling, Smotrich reaffirmed his stance on social media"The answer to The Hague – sovereignty now."
Following the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: "The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), our historical homeland."
On the eve of today's ruling, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly to reject the establishment of a Palestinian state by 68 votes to 9, calling Palestinian statehood “an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens."
Annexation, apartheid, forced displacement
While occupation itself isn't illegal under international law and international law specifies no time limits, it must be temporary. Occupying powers must administer territories for the local population's benefit without imposing sovereignty, altering demographics or depriving the occupied territory of its natural resources.
The ICJ found Israel's conduct falls short on all counts.
The court observed Israel has largely replaced local Palestinian law with its own regulations, beyond the "exceptional" circumstances allowed under international law. In East Jerusalem, Israeli law has applied since 1967, treating the area as a sovereign territory.
"Because Israel treats East Jerusalem as its own territory, it regards Palestinians residing there as foreigners," the court said, noting Palestinians need valid residence permits to live there. It cited policies of forcible evictions, home demolitions, and control of the freedom of movement of Palestinians.
"The law of occupation does not deprive the local populations, civilian institutions and the occupied territory of the regulatory authority they may have," the court ruled.
It said conditions under Israeli occupation amount to forced displacement of Palestinians, even without direct physical force, and noted that Israeli military and police actions "exacerbated the pressure" on Palestinians to leave their territory "against their will." It further considered Israel "severely" restricted Palestinians' access to adequate amounts of water, food and their own natural resources.
"Forcible displacement not only occurs when it is achieved through the use of physical force, but also when people concerned have no choice but to leave," ICJ stated.
The court also found "extensive evidence" of Israel incentivizing settlers and businesses to move into occupied areas, violating the Geneva Convention's prohibition on transferring civilian populations into occupied territory. The court cited Israel's 2018 "Jewish State" law, which establishes "Jewish settlement as a national value," as evidence of intent to annex occupied lands.
Israeli settlers, once considered radical, now hold key government positions. Bezalel Smotrich, formerly surveilled by Israeli intelligence as a terror risk, is the Finance Minister with control over West Bank civilian affairs. Itamar Ben-Gvir, previously deemed too extreme for military service, heads national security, overseeing police.
Since October, Israel has approved or advanced over 20 projects in East Jerusalem, adding thousands of new housing units. A U.N. report in March documented a record 24,300 new Israeli housing units in the West Bank from November 2022 to October 2023.
"The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power ... violates fundamental principles of international law," the court concluded.
This story has been updated with additional details.
