Palestinians have an inalienable right to statehood that must not be denied by Israel, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the International Court of Justice on Monday at the start of a six-day hearing on the conflict between the two peoples.
“The Palestinian people have a right to self-determination that is non-negotiable,” Maliki said, adding that “no occupying power including Israel can be granted a perpetual veto” over the national rights of another people.
The “acquisition of territory by force” and the “denial of self-determination are all grave violations of international law,” and there is “a legal and moral obligation to bring the occupation to a prompt end,” Maliki said.
At issue before the court is the legal status of Israel’s “occupation” of the territories it captured from Jordan and Egypt during the Six-Day War in 1967; – the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem.
Israel applied sovereignty to east Jerusalem after the war and retained military control of the West Bank and Gaza, withdrawing from that enclave in 2005. The IDF returned to Gaza in October 2023, as part of its military campaign to oust Hamas from that enclave.
The Palestinians and their supporters hope that an ICJ advisory opinion on the matter would help force Israel to withdraw from the pre-1967 lines in the West Bank and Jerusalem and ensure that it does not permanently return to Gaza.
The ICJ hearing on Monday addressed the question of Palestinian statehood at a time when Western countries are weighing unilateral Palestinian statehood recognition.
Israel has feared that the advisory opinion on the legality of the occupation could also include a determination that Israeli practices were tantamount to apartheid.
But even without that, the ruling could be used to internationally isolate Israel and delegitimize its right to self-defense, including in Gaza.
Who the ICJ is expected to hear from
Israel has boycotted the proceedings, but the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement after its first day of hearings.
“Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the discussion at the International Court of Justice in The Hague regarding the “legality of the occupation” – a move designed to harm Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats,” the PMO stated.
“The discussion in The Hague is part of the Palestinian attempt to dictate the results of the political settlement without negotiations. We will continue to fight this attempt, and the government and the Knesset are united in rejecting this wrong trend,” he stated.
At the ICJ, Maliki accused Israel of attempting to apply sovereignty to all of the West Bank and Gaza, as part of a campaign to oust all Palestinians from the territory, so that it could easily have one state in all of that area.
Maliki used a series of maps to show the shrinking Palestinian territories over the years. He also held up a photograph of the one that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used at the United Nations in 2023 that did not include any Palestinian territory at all.
Israel intends for its “occupation” to be permanent, Maliki said.
“For decades, the Palestinians have endured colonialism and apartheid,” Maliki stated. “There are those who are outraged by the use of these words, they should instead be outraged by the reality we are living, he said.
There is no “safe haven” from Israeli injustice in which Palestinians are treated as “unwelcome intruders in their ancestral land,” Maliki said.
Israel’s policies against Palestinians over the last 57 years have left them with only three choices, “displacement, subjugation, or death. These are the choices, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or genocide,” Maliki said.
Legal expert Phillipe Sands explained to the court that Israel must be ordered to end its occupation of Palestinian territory.
“The existence and exercise of the right-to-self determination are not conditional,” he said, adding that security concerns cannot be used as a pretext to deny those rights. “It cannot be a matter of negotiation.”
The consequence of the denial of those rights, Sands warned, is that all UN member states must force an end to the “occupation” by halting relations with Israel. “No aid, no assistance, no complicity, no contribution to forcible actions, no money, no arms, no trade, no nothing.”
“All UN members are obliged by law to end Israel’s presence on the territory of Palestine. Period,” Sands stated.
“The political context is not relevant.”
Throughout this week and again on February 26, when the hearing wraps up, the ICJ is expected to hear half-hour statements from 49 countries and three international organizations, in addition to the PA’s three-hour legal argument presented Monday.
The “occupation” hearing runs simultaneously with a second ICJ case examining whether or not the IDF’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza is tantamount to “genocide.” A preliminary hearing on that matter was held in January, but the ICJ has yet to hold substantive hearings on that charge.
In that “genocide” case, South Africa turned to the court in response to the Israel-Hamas war. The ICJ has the power to issue a binding ruling.
The “occupation” case, however, involves a non-binding advisory opinion. That advisory opinion, however, can be used as the basis for diplomatic action against Israel or to strengthen pending international legal action against the Jewish state.
Israeli leaders have long disputed the claim that the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem met the status of formal occupation on the basis that they were captured from Jordan and Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War rather than from a sovereign Palestinian state.
An ICJ advisory opinion in 2004, however, clarified that territories Israel captured during the 1967 war were considered to be “occupied” under international law.
Among countries scheduled to participate in the hearings over the next week are the United States -– Israel’s strongest supporter – China, Russia, South Africa, and Egypt.
Israel sent in written observations over the summer in which it said that the case turned a blind eye to the long history of the Jews on the land in question, Israel’s right to self-defense, and the international peace process for a negotiated two-state agreement.
The ICJ proceedings, it said, risked “fundamentally delegitimizing the established legal framework governing the conflict and any prospect of negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians which remains — as the Court itself has observed — the only viable path to peace.”
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a cartoon narrative of villain and victim in which there are no Israeli rights and no Palestinians obligations,” Israel wrote.
“For all the difficulties and obstacles that exist, Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation will not be served by further undermining the core understanding that this is a tragic conceit in which two sides – not just one – have rights and responsibilities.”
Israel added that proceeding with the case would be “harmful.”
The UNGA had asked the judges to review Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation ... including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”
The UNGA also asked the ICJ’s 15-judge panel to advise on how those policies and practices “affect the legal status of the occupation” and what legal consequences arise for all countries and the United Nations from this status.
Reuters contributed to this report.