A week of hearings began on Monday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Israeli regime’s attacks on and interference with UN agencies in Palestine.
The sessions come in response to a resolution passed last year by the UN General Assembly asking the court to weigh in on Israel’s legal responsibilities after the Israeli government blocked UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, from operating on its territory.
The hearings opened as the humanitarian aid system in Gaza has begun to collapse after Israel blocked the entry of all aid into the Strip and to its population of 2.3 million people in early March, while resuming its war on the battered enclave and killing hundreds of civilians.
A three-phased ceasefire agreement that saw a partial prisoner swap between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas went into force in January. After Israel received its agreed number of hostages, it refused to move forward with the consecutive phases of the US-backed agreement or to begin talks about them.
Despite repeated violations by Israel of the agreement, Hamas, which wants a permanent ceasefire deal and the withdrawal of the Israeli Occupation Forces from Gaza, has insisted on implementing the second and third phases of the agreement.
In response, Israel, which refuses to stop the war but wants Hamas to release all the remaining hostages without adhering to the agreement, has resorted to collective punishment by blocking the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies from entering Gaza since 2 March.
It has also stopped supplying the Strip with electricity and bombed its only remaining water desalination plant.
Although Israeli officials have made their intentions clear – to put pressure on Hamas by causing suffering to the Palestinian population – Israel denies it is violating international law and has boycotted The Hague-based Court.
Forty countries, including the United States, are set to speak in the proceedings. Although the ICJ judges’ advisory opinion is not binding, it provides clarity on legal questions. Once the court has issued its opinion, the UN General Assembly would be able to pick up the matter again and decide on further action.
At the opening of the proceedings on 28 April, UN Legal Counsel Elinor Hammarskjöld said that Israel was targeting humanitarian aid groups and had killed 295 UN personnel in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.
She emphasised the special protections and immunities of UN agencies and personnel, needed to implement mandated activities all over the world, including in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Palestine’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi, said that Israel is unravelling “fundamental principles of international law” including its obligations under the UN Charter.
The Israeli regime is turning Palestine – particularly Gaza – into a “mass grave” for Palestinians and rescue workers, he said. He told the ICJ judges that “all UN-supported bakeries in Gaza have been forced to shut their doors.”
“Nine of every 10 Palestinians have no access to safe drinking water. The storage facilities of the UN and other international agencies are empty,” Hijazi added.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has reported a near 100 per cent increase in the Palestinians’ need of food aid in the Occupied West Bank. “Impeding the presence and activities of the UN and international organisations must be viewed in the context of erasure and forced displacement,” Hijazi said.
“These are the facts. Starvation is here. Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war,” he said.
The Israeli occupation has demolished West Bank refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm, forcibly displacing more than 40,000 Palestinians with the aid of armed gangs of Israeli settlers, and it has announced that they will not be allowed to return.
The IOF has dropped over 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, said Ardi Imseis, a professor of international law at Queens University, who addressed the court on behalf of Palestine.
The bombs amount “to more than what was dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II… damaging over 92 per cent of civilian housing in Gaza, 88 per cent of schools, and 84 per cent of health facilities.”
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC, counsel of the State of Palestine, called out decades of Israeli impunity and systematic violations of international law and undermining of the UN and the Security Council.
“In addition to seeking to destroy the protective application of international law to the Palestinian people, Israel appears intent on destroying the very international framework created to ensure compliance with international law and accountability for its breach, with profound consequences that reverberate far beyond Palestine and Palestinians,” she warned.
Israel has banned UNRWA from operating on the West Bank, the only UN aid agency that has been providing relief for Palestinian refugees since 1948. The ban went into effect in January this year, affecting the six million Palestinians who rely entirely on the organisation for food, education, and medical support.
UNRWA’s mandate is an essential element of what the ICJ has twice recognised is the “permanent responsibility of the UN for the question of Palestine,” Imseis said.
“This responsibility originates in the unsuccessful attempt by the General Assembly to partition Palestine without the consent of the Palestinian people in 1947, and the ensuing 1948 Nakba during which between 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were forcibly exiled from Palestine.”
In essence, “it is because of Israel’s prolonged violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people – to return, to self-determination, and to freedom – that the need for UNRWA is as pressing today, if not more, than it was in 1949,” he added.
According to Craig Mokhiber, an international human rights lawyer and former director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ICJ is expected to issue an opinion condemning the Israeli regime given its flagrant violations of international law in attacking international organisations and obstructing humanitarian aid.
Israel has killed over 50,000 Palestinians and injured more than 100,000 since the war began in October 2023. As a result of its intense bombing, compounded with the IOF’s destruction of hospitals and blocking of aid and medical supplies, the Gaza Strip has become home to the world’s largest population of amputees, international aid groups say.
Israel has ignored the court’s advisory opinion last year on its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The ICJ ordered Israel to immediately withdraw from these territories, to compensate all entities that have suffered because of the occupation, and to allow Palestinians displaced from their lands to return.
Since it has no right to be present in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israel, according to the court, has no right to exercise any control or sovereignty in them.
In a separate case, the ICJ accepted and found merit in the case brought last year by South Africa against Israel for alleged acts of genocide in Gaza, which is considered the crime of all crimes in international law.
The court rejected Israel’s request to dismiss the case, which is expected to take years. Unlike the current hearings, which are in response to a request for an advisory opinion, the eventual genocide case’s rulings will be binding and may not be appealed against.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 1 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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