In an unprecedented judicial step, international justice obliges Israel to end its presence in the occupied territories of Palestine

He explained that this opinion does not include the Israeli war on Gaza, which began last October.

On December 31, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting the International Court of Justice to issue a non-binding “advisory opinion” on “the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem,” relating to the long occupation. Term of the Palestinian territories since 1967.

In the June 1967 war, Israel took control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula, and then declared its occupation of these lands, which have an area of 70,000 square kilometers. It is an occupation that the United Nations later declared illegal.

Palestinian and Israeli responses

In the first Palestinian reaction, Riyad al-Maliki, the Special Envoy of the Palestinian President, said that the International Court of Justice confirmed the Palestinians’ right to freedom from colonialism.

Al-Maliki added that all countries must shoulder their duties not to recognize the illegal presence of Israel.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice regarding Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, describing it as "wrong."

Netanyahu said, "Our people are not occupiers of their land nor the legacy of their fathers, and any false decision in The Hague will not distort this historical truth."

• Source: Al Jazeera