The International Court of Justice said Friday that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and its settlements there, violated international law — the most sweeping stance laid out by the world’s highest court on an issue that has been the subject of debates and resolutions at the United Nations for decades.
The court issued an advisory opinion that, while not binding, carries authority and legal weight.
It is unlikely to affect Israeli policy but could shape international opinion.
“The Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and the regime associated with them have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” the court’s president, Nawaf Salam, said as he issued the 83-page opinion at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands.
The court also said that Israel’s presence in the territories should come to an end “as rapidly as possible” and that Israel was “under an obligation to provide full reparation for the damage caused by its internationally wrongful acts to all natural or legal persons concerned.”
Friday’s pronouncement received heightened attention because of the war in the Gaza Strip, which began more than nine months ago, and because of a separate genocide case brought in the same court by South Africa against Israel in December over its conduct in the war.
In an initial ruling on the genocide case in January, the court ordered Israel to restrain its attacks in Gaza, and in May it ordered the country to immediately halt its military offensive in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza.
The U.N. General Assembly in 2022 asked the court for its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation” of territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war, including the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the decision “mendacious” and said that Israeli settlement in all parts of its land was legal.
“The Jewish people is not an occupier in its land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the tracks of our forefathers in Judea and Samaria,” he said, using the Israeli designation for the territories that make up the West Bank.
In his response, Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted an Israeli flag emoji on social media and added: “The answer to The Hague — sovereignty now.”
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