Top UN court says Israel’s settlement policy in occupied territories violates international law

Top UN court says Israel’s settlement policy in occupied territories violates international law
Magistrates are seen at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as part of South Africa's request on a Gaza ceasefire in The Hague, on May 24, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 19 July 2024
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Top UN court says Israel’s settlement policy in occupied territories violates international law

Top UN court says Israel’s settlement policy in occupied territories violates international law
  • The ruling is expected to have more effect on international opinion than it will on Israeli policies
  • Israel has built over 100 settlements, according to anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now

THE HAGUE: The top United Nations court said Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank and east Jerusalem violates international law, as it delivered a non-binding advisory opinion on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state, a ruling that could have more effect on international opinion than it will on Israeli policies.
International Court of Justice President Nawaf Salam was expected to take about an hour to read out the full opinion of the panel, which is made up of 15 judges from around the world.
In part of the opinion, he said the panel had found that "the transfer by Israel of settlers to the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as Israel’s maintenance of their presence, is contrary to article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” The court also noted with “grave concern” that Israel’s settlement policy has been expanding.
The court also found that Israel's use of natural resources was “inconsistent” with its obligations under international law as an occupying power.
Friday’s hearing comes against the backdrop of Israel’s devastating 10-month military assault on Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. In a separate case, the International Court of Justice is considering a South African claim that Israel’s campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide, a claim that Israel vehemently denies.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.
Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, whose future should be decided in negotiations, while it has moved population there in settlements to solidify its hold. It has annexed east Jerusalem in a move that is not internationally recognized, while it withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but maintained a blockade of the territory after Hamas took power in 2007. The international community generally considers all three areas to be occupied territory.
At hearings in February, then-Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki accused Israel of apartheid and urged the United Nations’ top court to declare that Israel’s occupation of lands sought by the Palestinians is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally for any hope for a two-state future to survive.
Israel, which normally considers the United Nations and international tribunals as unfair and biased, did not send a legal team to the hearings. But it submitted written comments, saying that the questions put to the court are prejudiced and “fail to recognize Israel’s right and duty to protect its citizens,” address Israeli security concerns or acknowledge Israel-Palestinian agreements to negotiate issues, including “the permanent status of the territory, security arrangements, settlements, and borders.”
The Palestinians presented arguments in February along with 49 other nations and three international organizations.
Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael think tank in The Hague, said that if the court rules that Israel’s policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem breach international law, that is unlikely to change Israeli policies but it would “isolate Israel further internationally, at least from a legal point of view.”
He said such a ruling would “worsen the case for occupation. It removes any kind of legal, political, philosophical underpinning of the Israeli expansion project.”
It would also strengthen the hand of “those who seek to advocate against it” — such as the grassroots Palestinian-led movement advocating boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
He said it also could increase the number of countries that recognize the state of Palestine, in particular in the Western world, following the recent example of Spain and Norway and Ireland.”
It is not the first time the ICJ has been asked to give its legal opinion on Israeli policies. Two decades ago, the court ruled that Israel’s West Bank separation barrier was “contrary to international law.” Israel boycotted those proceedings, saying they were politically motivated.
Israel says the barrier is a security measure. Palestinians say the structure amounts to a massive land grab because it frequently dips into the West Bank.
The U.N. General Assembly voted by a wide margin in December 2022 to ask the world court for the advisory opinion. Israel vehemently opposed the request that was promoted by the Palestinians. Fifty countries abstained from voting.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, according to the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. The West Bank settler population has grown by more than 15% in the past five years to more than 500,000 Israelis, according to a pro-settler group.
Israel also has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.
The international community considers all settlements to be illegal or obstacles to peace since they are built on lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government is dominated by settlers and their political supporters. Netanyahu has given his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, unprecedented authority over settlement policy. Smotrich has used this position to cement Israel’s control over the West Bank by pushing forward plans to build more settlement homes and to legalize outposts.
Authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley, a strategic piece of land deep inside the West Bank, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press. Data from Peace Now, the tracking group, indicate it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords at the start of the peace process.


Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader

Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader
Updated 18 February 2025
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Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader

Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader
  • “The airport will be closed, and takeoffs and landings... will halt on February 23, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT) until 4:00 pm,” the authority said
  • Qassem at the weekend called for broad participation as a demonstration of the group’s strength

BEIRUT: Beirut airport will close for four hours on Sunday during the funeral of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s civil aviation authority has announced.
“The airport will be closed, and takeoffs and landings... will halt on February 23, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT) until 4:00 pm,” the authority said in a statement carried by official media on Tuesday.
Nasrallah was killed in a huge Israeli air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, as Israel scaled up its campaign against the Iran-backed group following almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
Sunday’s funeral will also be for Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah figure who had been chosen to succeed Nasrallah, before he too was killed in an Israeli raid in October.
The funeral is to begin at 1:00 p.m. at a sports stadium in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
It will include a speech by current Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem, and is to be followed by a procession to Nasrallah’s burial site.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Monday that Iran “will participate in this ceremony at a high level,” without specifying who would attend.
Qassem at the weekend called for broad participation as a demonstration of the group’s strength.
“We want to transform this funeral into a show of support and an affirmation of (Hezbollah’s) plan and approach, and hold our heads high,” Qassem said.
After decades at the helm of the group once seen as invincible, the killing of the charismatic Nasrallah sent shock waves across Lebanon and the wider region.
Hezbollah has said 79 countries would be involved in the commemoration, whether at an official or “popular” level.
Earlier this month in a security alert about the funeral, the US embassy urged its nationals to avoid the area “which includes the airport.”
Qassem has said Nasrallah would be buried on the outskirts of Beirut “in a plot of land we chose between the old and new airport roads.”
Safieddine will be buried in his hometown of Deir Qanun in southern Lebanon, he added.
Nasrallah had been temporarily buried elsewhere because of security concerns, Qassem said, and the group had also put off the public funeral for security reasons.
A November 27 ceasefire deal put a halt to two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah that saw the group weakened and numerous senior commanders killed.


Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points

Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points
Updated 18 February 2025
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Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points

Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points
  • Aoun said Beirut was in contact with truce brokers the United States and France to press Israel to complete its withdrawal
  • In a statement, Aoun, along with Lebanon’s prime minister and parliament speaker, warned the government would ask the UN Security Council to push Israel to leave

KFAR KILA, Lebanon: Lebanese leaders said Beirut was in contact with Washington and Paris to press Israel to fully withdraw from south Lebanon, branding its presence in five points an “occupation” after a ceasefire deadline expired on Tuesday.
The UN called the incomplete pull-out a violation of a Security Council resolution, though it has allowed many displaced residents to return to border villages, many largely destroyed in more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Beirut was in contact with truce brokers the United States and France to press Israel to complete its withdrawal, after an initial late January deadline set under the deal was already extended.
Decision-makers are “unified in adopting the diplomatic option, because nobody wants war,” Aoun said, according to a statement.
Earlier Tuesday, Lebanon said any Israeli presence on its soil constituted an “occupation.”
In a statement, Aoun, along with Lebanon’s prime minister and parliament speaker, warned the government would ask the UN Security Council to push Israel to leave, and said that Lebanese armed forces were ready to assume duties on the border, adding Beirut had “the right to adopt all means” to make Israel withdraw.
In the south, many returned to destroyed or heavily damaged homes, farms and businesses after more than a year of fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that included two months of all-out war, which halted with the November 27 ceasefire.
“The entire village has been reduced to rubble. It’s a disaster zone,” said Alaa Al-Zein, back in Kfar Kila.
Israel had announced just before the pullout deadline that it would keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border, and on Tuesday its Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said they would withdraw “once Lebanon implements its side of the deal.”
Israel’s army had said it would remain on the five hilltops, overlooking swathes of both sides of the border, “temporarily” to “make sure there’s no immediate threat.”
Lebanon’s army announced it had deployed, starting Monday, in 11 southern border villages and other areas from which Israeli troops have pulled out.
The official National News Agency said two people were found alive in Kfar Kila, three months after contact was lost. One was a Hezbollah fighter thought to have been killed.
The agency also said that “enemy forces” set off a powerful explosion outside the village of Kfarshuba.
In a joint statement, UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said that at “the end of the period set” for Israel’s withdrawal and the Lebanese army’s deployment, any further “delay in this process is not what we hoped would happen.”
They said it was a violation of a Security Council resolution that ended a 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
In Lebanon, the cost of reconstruction is expected to reach more than $10 billion, while more than 100,000 people remain displaced, according to the United Nations.
Despite the devastation, returning resident Zein said his fellow villagers were adamant about going home.
“The whole village is returning, we will set up tents and sit on the ground” if need be, he said.
Others were going south to look for the bodies of their relatives under the rubble.
Among them was Samira Jumaa, who arrived in the early hours to look for her brother, a Hezbollah fighter killed in Kfar Kila with others five months ago.
“We have not heard of them until now. We are certain they were martyred,” she said.
“I’ve come to see my brother and embrace the land where my brother and his comrades fought,” she added.
Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as in south Beirut, suffered heavy destruction during the hostilities, initiated by Hezbollah in support of ally Hamas during the Gaza war.
Under the ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew from the south over an initial 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure there.
Since the cross-border hostilities began in October 2023, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the health ministry.
On the Israeli side of the border, 78 people including soldiers have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, with an additional 56 troops killed in southern Lebanon during the ground offensive.
Around 60 people have reportedly been killed in Lebanon since the truce began, two dozen of them on January 26 as residents tried to return to border towns on the initial withdrawal deadline.


Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal
Updated 18 February 2025
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Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal
  • Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in
  • In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out

DEIR MIMAS, Lebanon: Israeli forces withdrew Tuesday from border villages in southern Lebanon under a deadline spelled out in a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, but stayed put in five strategic overlook locations inside Lebanon.
Top Lebanese leaders denounced the continued presence of the Israel troops as an occupation and a violation of the deal, maintaining that Israel was required to make a full withdrawal by Tuesday. The troops’ presence is also a sore point with the militant Hezbollah group, which has demanded action from the authorities.
Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas from where the Israeli troops pulled out and began clearing roadblocks set up by Israeli forces and checking for unexploded ordnance. They blocked the main road leading to the villages, preventing anyone from entering while the military was looking for any explosives left behind.
Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in. Elsewhere, the army allowed the residents to enter.
Many of their houses were demolished during the more than year-long conflict or in the two months after November’s ceasefire agreement, when Israeli forces were still occupying the area.
In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out.
“What I’m seeing is beyond belief. I am in a state of shock,” said Khodo Suleiman, a construction contractor, pointing to his destroyed home on a hilltop.
“There are no homes, no plants, nothing left,” said Suleiman, who had last been in Kfar Kila six months ago. “I am feeling a mixture of happiness and pain.”
In the main village square, Lebanese troops deployed as a military bulldozer removed rubble from the street.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli army “will stay in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five control posts” to guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. He also said the army had erected new posts on the Israeli side of the border and sent reinforcements there.
“We are determined to provide full security to every northern community,” Katz said.
However, Lebanon’s three top officials — the country’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker — in a joint statement said that Israel’s continued presence at the five locaions was in violation of the ceasefire agreement. They called on the UN Security Council to take action to force a complete Israeli withdrawal.
“The continued Israeli presence in any inch of Lebanese territory is an occupation, with all the legal consequences that result from that according to international legitimacy,” the statement said.
The Israeli troop presence was also criticized in a joint statement by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UN peacekeeping force in the country, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.
The two, however, warned that this should not “overshadow the tangible progress that has been made” since the ceasefire agreement.
Near the Lebanese villages of Deir Mimas and Kfar Kila, hundreds of villagers were gathered early on Tuesday morning as an Israeli drone flew overhead.
Atef Arabi, who had been waiting with his wife and two daughters before sunrise, was eager to see what’s left of his home in Kfar Kila.
“I am very happy I am going back even if I find my home destroyed,” said the 36-year-old car mechanic. “If I find my house destroyed I will rebuild it.”
Later on Tuesday, Kfar Kila’s mayor Hassan Sheet told The Associated Press that 90 percent of the village homes are completely destroyed while the remaining 10 percent are damaged. “There are no homes nor buildings standing,” he said, adding that rebuilding will start from scratch.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war last September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million were displaced at the height of the conflict, more than 100,000 of whom have not been able to return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and some 60,000 are displaced.
Hussein Fares left Kfar Kila in October 2023 for the southern city of Nabatiyeh. When the fighting intensified in September he moved with his family to the city of Sidon where they were given a room in a school housing displaced people.
Kfar Kila saw intense fighting and Israeli troops later detonated many of its homes.
“I have been waiting for a year and the half to return,” said Fares who has a pickup truck and works as a laborer. He said he understands that the reconstruction process will take time.
“I have been counting the seconds for this day,” he said.


Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers
Updated 18 February 2025
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Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers
  • The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said RSF attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat
  • The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people, including women and children, in a three-day assault on villages in the country’s south, a lawyer group monitoring the war said Tuesday.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat, in White Nile state.
The RSF carried out “executions, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and property looting” during the assault since Saturday, which also left hundreds wounded or missing, it said.
The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River. Some drowned in the process, with the lawyers calling the attack an act of “genocide.”
Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry said the death toll from the RSF attacks so far was 433 civilians, including babies. It called the assault a “horrible massacre.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, but the paramilitaries have been specifically notorious for committing ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced over 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
White Nile state is currently divided by the warring parties.
The army controls southern parts, including the state capital, Rabak, as well as two major cities and a key military base.
The RSF meanwhile holds northern parts of the state, bordering the capital Khartoum, which include several villages and towns and where the latest attacks took place.
Witnesses from the two villages, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Khartoum, said thousands of residents fled their homes, crossing to the western bank of the Nile following RSF shelling.
A medical source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for their safety on Monday said some bodies were lying in the streets while others were killed inside their homes with no one able to reach them.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the army advances in its bid to reclaim full control of the capital from paramilitaries.
The UN’s children agency, UNICEF, said on Sunday that those trapped in areas and around the fighting in Khartoum had reported indiscriminate shooting, looting, and forced displacement, as well as alarming accounts of families being separated, children missing, detained or abducted and sexual violence.
Many children, it added, showed signs of distress having witnessed the events around them.
“This is a living nightmare for children, and it must end,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan.
Elsewhere, RSF shelling and gunfire shook the streets this week in a famine-hit camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher in the country’s west.
Hundreds of families fled the violence to neighboring towns with civilians saying that they were robbed and attacked on the roads.
The Zamzam camp, home to between 500,000 and a million people according to aid groups, was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a UN-backed assessment.


Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
  • Four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week

JERUSALEM: Israel said Tuesday it expects the bodies of four hostages held in Gaza to be returned on Thursday, ahead of the release of six living captives on Saturday, confirming an earlier announcement from Hamas.
During indirect negotiations in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, “agreements were reached according to which the six living hostages (due for release under) the first phase will be released on Saturday,” said a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, referring to the truce agreement that went into effect last month.

It added that four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week.