On 22 October this year, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations under the Genocide Convention and related international law in the context of Gaza.
The opinion is a forceful restatement that the Israeli occupation’s Gaza blockade, restrictions on aid, weaponisation of starvation and obstruction of humanitarian relief violate both international humanitarian law and the Genocide Convention.
The court determined that the denial of food, water, medicine and fuel to over two million civilians cannot be justified by military necessity. It explicitly described such deprivation as the “use of starvation as a method of warfare”, an act that constitutes a war crime and a genocidal practice.
The ICJ’s ruling comes weeks after the US-brokered ceasefire agreement went into effect to end the two-year Israeli genocide in Gaza. But the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) resumption of daily massacres, airstrikes and restriction of aid, after a brief lull following the agreement and prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians, has reflected a return to the same genocidal actions albeit with less intensity. While in violation of the ceasefire, Israel’s actions have been ignored by both the US and the international community.
By issuing yet another damning advisory opinion articulating Israel’s violation of the Genocide Convention and emphasising its existence as an occupying force, and that of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as an occupied people, the World Court’s ruling is a reminder that, despite all efforts to avoid accountability, the international justice system has not turned that page on Israel’s crimes.
Observers say the timing of this advisory opinion also intensifies its impact. Issued amid escalating famine, mass displacement and widespread documentation of atrocities, the ruling transforms what was long debated in moral terms into a juridical reckoning. It arrives at a moment when international institutions face an acute crisis of credibility over their response to Gaza. By asserting that starvation, displacement and denial of aid are not just humanitarian failures but crimes, the ICJ has re-centred the discourse on legality and responsibility.
This timing also constrains the diplomatic manoeuvring of states that have attempted to frame Israel’s conduct as legitimate warfare. The opinion provides a clear, authoritative reference for UN organs, national courts and civil society to demand accountability. It opens legal and moral space for sanctions, investigations and the re-evaluation of military cooperation with Israel under the doctrine of state responsibility.
The ICJ concluded that Israel’s conduct amounted not merely to sporadic failures of supply but to a policy-driven deprivation of basic life necessities. It linked the scale and systematic nature of the deprivation to the intent and knowledge elements required under the Genocide Convention — warning that such actions “create conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a protected group.”
From a legal standpoint, this language carries profound weight: it situates starvation not as collateral harm but as a deliberate act that may meet the threshold of genocidal conduct if continued with foreseeable and disproportionate effects. This aligns with growing bodies of evidence from humanitarian agencies documenting famine, the collapse of healthcare systems, and mass civilian deaths due to hunger and preventable disease.
The opinion also clarified that mass displacement under occupation, when induced by unbearable living conditions or direct coercion, breaches the Geneva Conventions. Israel’s military operations, evacuation orders, and siege conditions were deemed incompatible with its obligations as an occupying power. The court held that creating an environment in which civilians “must flee to survive” constitutes a form of forcible transfer and thus a grave breach of international humanitarian law.
According to UN agencies and international humanitarian organisations, the entire population of Gaza has been displaced during the war. Israel continues to deliberately destroy the few remaining civilian infrastructure spaces in the enclave, as the vast majority of Palestinians live in tents.
The judgement is legally precise yet morally unambiguous: rendering Gaza an entire territory uninhabitable cannot be justified as self-defence. The court effectively dismantled the legal fiction that security imperatives excuse collective punishment, affirming that the right to exist securely cannot be pursued through the annihilation of another people’s means of existence.
In addressing Israel’s ban of UNRWA and other UN agencies since January this year, the ICJ reaffirmed that the neutrality of humanitarian institutions is guaranteed by international law and cannot be unilaterally revoked by Israel, which is an occupying power.
The ICJ reaffirmed that Israel is bound by the Genocide Convention’s preventive and punitive obligations. Crucially, the ICJ tied this obligation not only to Israel but to third states that materially support or enable violations. This marks a significant expansion of accountability: states supplying arms, diplomatic cover, or financial support to policies causing mass suffering are legally exposed to complicity claims under Article III(e) of the Genocide Convention.
The World Court’s advisory opinion extends beyond Gaza to include the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, affirming that Israel’s entire occupation is unlawful under international law. The court found that Israel’s ongoing settlement expansion, annexation measures, and systematic dispossession of Palestinians constitute serious violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Charter. It concluded that Israel’s actions amount to the illegal acquisition of territory by force, accompanied by policies of collective punishment, apartheid, and demographic engineering. In its findings, the court made it clear that Israel is not merely in technical breach of international norms but is acting as a persistent violator of fundamental principles of international law, maintaining an occupation sustained through structural violence and impunity.
A few days before the ICJ issued its advisory opinion, the International Criminal Court (ICC) rejected Israel’s attempt to appeal the arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over the genocide in Gaza. The ICC had first issued the warrants in November 2024.
In May, Israel asked the court to dismiss the warrants while it pursued a separate challenge over the ICC’s jurisdiction. On 16 July, the judges rejected that request, ruling there was “no legal basis” to quash the warrants while the jurisdiction issue was still pending.
A week later, Israel sought permission to appeal the July decision, but on 17 October, the judges again dismissed the bid, stating that “the issue, as framed by Israel, is not an appealable issue.”
The official death toll from Israel’s two-year war on Gaza remains around 60,000, with tens of thousands more believed to be buried under the rubble.
A study published in The Lancet earlier this week found that more than three million years of Palestinian human life have been lost in Gaza. The researchers calculated that each of the 60,199 Palestinians killed between 7 October 2023, and 31 July 2025 represents an average loss of 51 years of life.
Authors Sammy Zahran of Colorado State University and Ghassan Abu-Sittah of the American University of Beirut reported that the vast majority of life-years lost were among civilians, “even under the relaxed definition of a supposed combatant involving all men and boys of possible conscription age (15-44 years).” The study found that over one million life-years were lost among children under 15.
The researchers noted that their estimates cover only direct deaths from Israeli attacks, excluding those caused by the destruction of infrastructure, starvation, dehydration, disease or the collapse of Gaza’s medical system.
An earlier Lancet study this year concluded that Gaza’s death toll had been severely underreported, estimating that the real number of fatalities was at least 40 per cent higher than official figures due to Israel’s systematic destruction of healthcare infrastructure and record-keeping systems.
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