International Court of Justice Concludes Hearing on Occupation of Palestine

On Feb. 26, the one-month deadline given to Israel by the International Court of Justice to submit a report on the measures it had taken to prevent the commission of genocidal acts in Gaza and to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid and services to Palestinians, expired (cf. SAS 6, 8/ 24). According to Israeli press reports, a report was in fact drawn up and submitted, but will not be made available to the public or the press.

Amnesty International alleged on the same day that Israeli authorities had “failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply” with the ICJ ruling. Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the number of aid trucks entering Gaza had actually decreased by roughly one-third since the ruling was issued. In addition, over 3,500 more Palestinians have been directly killed by Israeli attacks during that time.

A final ruling on the case, which was originally filed by the government of South Africa, will take months, and possibly years.

Feb. 26 was also the concluding day of one week of testimony at the ICJ on a request filed by the UN General Assembly in December 2022 to determine the consequences of Israel’s occupation on the human rights of Palestinians. Over the eight days of hearings, almost all 50 nations testifying denounced the unquestionable violations of those rights as well as of Palestine’s right to self-determination. The point was made by many that the 75 years of occupation means that de facto those territories have been “annexed”, in violation of the UN rulings. Only the United States representative attempted to argue that the dispute between Israel and Palestine should not be settled according to the principles of international law, but only through political negotiations between the two parties.