Legal Grind-Down (2024)

Kamera: Zenza Bronica SQ-Ai

Linse: Zenzanon PS 50mm + extension tube

Film: Rollei Retro 400S @ ISO 400

Kjemi: Rodinal (1:25 / 10:30 min. @ 20°C)

 

-Monday 19 February 2024: I have just watched the whole proceedings of today’s opening statements by Palestine in the International Court of Justice in Den Haag, where in this new case the legality, policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are in question.

 

This is truly an historic moment. And the presentation today was immensely powerful. I was so impressed by the whole legal team and the entire presentation of the case. In particular, I was blown away by the sharp and precise presentation by the lawyer Paul Reichler and the emotional appeal of Riyad Mansour. This was monumental.

 

Together with South Africa’s separate genocide case against Israel, I am certain we are finally witnessing the beginning of the end of the Zionist regime and justice at last for the Palestinian people. Today Palestine had 3 hours of presentation. In the next few days, more than 50 additional countries will also present their statements.

 

Here is history in the making.

 

International Court of Justice: Opening hearing on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories (publ. 19 February 2024) [Video]

 

International Court of Justice: Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem [Transcripts and Documents]

 

 

Mr REICHLER:

 

3. THE ILLEGALITY OF ISRAEL’S PROLONGED OCCUPATION, ANNEXATION AND SETTLEMENT OF THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

 

1. Mr President, Members of the Court, it is an honour for me to appear before you, and a privilege to speak on behalf of the State of Palestine.

 

2. I will address the legality of Israel’s prolonged occupation, annexation and settlement of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In so doing, I will identify the elements that determine whether, and in what circumstances, a belligerent occupation is, or becomes, unlawful under international law; I will then review the evidence to assess whether those elements are present here; and I will show that, based on the applicable law and the well-established and undisputed facts, Israel’s 56-year occupation of Palestinian territory is manifestly and gravely unlawful, and that international law requires that it be brought to an end, completely and unconditionally.

 

I. The applicable rule of law

 

3. The applicable rule of law is straightforward. As Pictet wrote in 1958, “occupation . . . is essentially a temporary . . . situation”. This remains the law. In December 2022, the General Assembly, in resolution 77/126, recognized that “the occupation of a territory is to be a temporary, de facto situation, whereby the occupying Power can neither claim possession nor exert its sovereignty over the territory it occupies”. This rule is neatly explained in the Written Statement of Switzerland:

 

“The laws of occupation are built on the idea that occupation is only a temporary situation. They are based on four fundamental principles . . .: 1) the occupying power does not acquire sovereignty over the territory it occupies . . . 2) the occupying power must maintain the status quo ante and must not take any measures which might bring about permanent changes”.

 

The law is thus crystal clear: occupation can only be a temporary state of affairs. A permanent occupation is a legal oxymoron.

 

II. The permanent character of the Israeli occupation

 

4. Mr President, what makes Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territory unlawful is precisely its permanent character, and what demonstrates its permanence are:

 

(i) Israel’s de jure and de facto annexation of Jerusalem and the West Bank;

 

(ii) its claims of sovereignty over these areas, which it refers to by their biblical names, Judea and Samaria, and considers integral parts of the State of Israel;

 

(iii) its establishment of hundreds of permanent Israeli settlements, with over 700,000 Israeli settlers, who have been promised by successive Israeli governments that they will never be removed; and

 

(iv) the multitude of official statements and documents that openly declare Israel’s intention to incorporate all of the occupied territory east of the Green Line into the State of Israel as a permanent part of a single Jewish State extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

 

A. Declarations of permanence by Israel’s highest authorities

 

5. As I will show you, the evidence is overwhelming and leaves no room for serious dispute about Israel’s actions or its intentions. As Israel’s Cabinet Secretary wrote in June of last year:

 

“Judea and Samaria were not seized from a sovereign state recognized by international law, and the State of Israel has a right to impose its sovereignty over these areas as they comprise the cradle of history of the Jewish people and are an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.”

 

As purported legal authority, the Cabinet Secretary invoked the First Book of Maccabees, written in the year 100 BC, chapter 15, verse 33:

 

“It is not a foreign land we have taken nor have we seized the property of foreigners, but only our ancestral heritage, which for a time had been unjustly occupied by our enemies.”

 

6. This was followed in August of last year by a message broadcast on Israel’s Army Radio by Israel’s Heritage Minister:

 

“Sovereignty must be extended within the borders of the West

Bank . . . and in the most prudent way, to create international recognition that this place is ours . . . There is no Green Line, it is a fictitious line that creates a distorted reality and must be erased.”

 

7. In September 2023, Israel’s Prime Minister literally erased the Green Line, in his presentation to the United Nations General Assembly. As you saw earlier, he depicted the State of Israel as extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating not only the Green Line but all traces of Palestine. This was no oversight; it was an act of the Head of Government, with all the attribution that it implies. The same message was delivered by Israel’s Finance Minister in Paris, six months earlier, when he denied the existence of Palestine and declared that Palestinians do not constitute a people. Previously, he said:

 

“We are here to stay. We will make it clear that our national ambition for a Jewish State from the river to the sea is an accomplished fact, a fact not open to discussion or negotiation.”

 

This has been Israel’s consistent position. Here is the map of Israel produced by its armed forces and published by the Government in 2021. One State, Israel, from the river to the sea. There is no Green Line; there is no Palestine. Instead, Palestine has been replaced by “Judea” and “Samaria”, which, according to Israel’s highest officials, are now integral parts of the State of Israel.

 

B. Annexation and settlement of Jerusalem

 

8. As these official statements and maps demonstrate, Israel makes no secret of its intention to retain permanently the entire area east of the Green Line. Its annexation of occupied Palestinian territory began in 1967 with legislation annexing East Jerusalem, which Israel increased eleven-fold in size to incorporate not only the Holy City but also vast areas of the West Bank surrounding the City. Its Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, declared at the time:

 

“The Israel Defence Forces have liberated Jerusalem . . . We have returned to this most sacred shrine, never to part from it again.”

 

In 1990, the Israeli Cabinet instructed the Foreign Minister to notify the Secretary-General of the United Nations that

 

“Jerusalem is not, in any part, ‘occupied territory’; it is the sovereign capital of Israel”.

 

In June 1996, the Guidelines of the incoming Israeli Government stated:

 

“Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is one city, whole and undivided, and will remain forever under Israel’s sovereignty.”

 

More recently, in assuming office in December 2022, the current Prime Minister declared that

 

“[t]he Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem”.

 

As these official statements make clear, Israel’s dominion over Jerusalem and the incorporated area of the West Bank is not intended to be temporary. It has been repeatedly proclaimed by Israel’s highest authorities to be “eternal”.

 

9. In furtherance of this end, more than 230,000 Israeli Jewish settlers - encouraged, subsidized and protected by the Israeli Government and occupation forces - have been installed in East Jerusalem, dramatically altering the demographic composition of the Holy City by creating an Israeli Jewish majority.

 

C. Annexation and settlement of the West Bank

 

10. Israel has been equally clear in declaring its permanence in the West Bank, where more than 465,000 Israeli Jewish settlers have been implanted with the support of every Israeli government since 1967, in over 270 ever-expanding settlements, spread throughout this territory, in what can only be described as a vast colonial enterprise. These settlements, whose accelerated growth and distribution over the years are illustrated on your screens now, are a key instrument of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank; this is both their purpose and their effect.

 

11. As the Secretary-General reported to the General Assembly in 2015:

 

“Occupation is supposed to be temporary because the annexation or acquisition of territory by force is strictly prohibited under international law . . . In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the establishment and maintenance of the settlements amount to a slow, but steady annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory.”

 

12. Israel has made no secret of the intended permanence of these settlements. In 2010, Prime Minister Netanyahu told Israeli settlers in the West Bank:

 

“Our message is clear. ‘We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here. This place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity.’”

 

In August 2019, the Prime Minister announced that:

 

“The time has come to apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and to also arrange the status of all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria . . . They will be part of the State of Israel.”

 

In January 2020, Israel’s Defence Minister, Naftali Bennett, declared:

 

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time . . . we will apply sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another.”

 

13. This area, which is depicted in red on your screens now, comprises over 61 per cent of the West Bank. The Defence Minister proclaimed:

 

“I solemnly declare that Area C belongs to Israel.”

 

This area includes the Jordan Valley, which is the water reservoir, the breadbasket and the source of life for the entire West Bank.

 

14. In December 2022, the Guiding Principles of the incoming Israeli Government declared:

 

“The Jewish people have an exclusive and indisputable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The Government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel - the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.”

 

The coalition agreement between the political parties that formed the Government included this pledge:

 

“[T]he Prime Minister will lead the formulation and promotion of policy in which sovereignty will be applied in Judea and Samaria, while choosing the timing and weighing all the national and international interests of the State of Israel.”

 

III. Israel’s defiance of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Court

 

15. General Assembly resolution 77/126 was adopted on 12 December 2022, just as the current Israeli Government was assuming office. The resolution pointedly recalled:

 

“[T]he principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by force and therefore the illegality of the annexation of any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes a breach of international law” and the resolution condemned Israel’s “annexation of land, whether de facto or through national legislation”.

 

16. Israel has thoroughly disregarded resolution 77/126, just as it disregarded all prior General Assembly and Security Council resolutions declaring illegal the annexation of any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the establishment of Israeli settlements there. These include but are by no means limited to:

 

* - Security Council resolution 252 of 1968, declaring Israel’s acquisition of territory by military conquest “inadmissible”;

 

* - resolution 476 of 1980, which “[r]eaffirm[ed] the overriding necessity for ending the prolonged occupation of Arab territories” in 1980 and “[s]trongly deplore[d] the refusal of Israel . . . to comply with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly”;

 

* - resolution 478 of 1980, which “determine[d] that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel . . . to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the ‘basic law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith”;

 

* - resolution 2334 of 2016, which “reaffirm[ed] . . . the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force”, and condemned “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 . . . including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians”; and

 

* - at least 28 General Assembly resolutions, which expressly condemned Israel’s “annexation” of Jerusalem and the West Bank.

 

* 17. Israel has also blatantly disregarded the obligations reflected in the Court’s 2004 Advisory Opinion in the Wall case. Since then, instead of dismantling the wall, Israel has extended it from a length of 190 km to more than 460 km38, encompassing hundreds of additional square kilometres of Palestinian land, and incorporating it into the State of Israel. In its Advisory Opinion, the Court expressed concern lest

 

“the construction of the wall and its associated régime create a ‘fait accompli’ on the ground that could well become permanent, in which case, and notwithstanding the formal characterization of the wall by Israel, it would be tantamount to de facto annexation”

 

18. And that is precisely what has happened over the past 20 years, not only within the expanded confines of the wall, but all across the West Bank, most of which has now been annexed de facto by Israel. In 2022, the report of the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry concluded:

 

“Israel treats the occupation as a permanent fixture and has - for all intents and purposes - annexed parts of the West Bank . . . The International Court of Justice anticipated such a scenario in its 2004 advisory opinion . . . This has now become the reality.”

 

19. The Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory reached the same conclusion:

 

“The occupation by Israel has been conducted in profound defiance of international law . . . Its 55-year-old occupation burst through the restraints of temporariness long ago. Israel has progressively engaged in the de jure and de facto annexation of occupied territory.”

 

IV. Recent acceleration of Israel’s annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

 

20. Mr President, Israel’s ongoing annexation of the West Bank accelerated in 2023, with the largest ever expansion of settlements in the territory. Twenty-two new settlements were authorized and more than 16,000 new housing units were built, funded or planned by Israeli authorities. As explained by Israel’s Finance Minister:

 

“The construction boom in Judea and Samaria and all over our country continues . . . We will continue to develop the settlement[s] and strengthen the Israeli hold on the territory.”

 

21. In developing its settlements, Israel has invested heavily in the infrastructure needed to supply them with water and electric power, as well as a network of roads and highways to connect them to one another and to Israel itself. These investments, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, attest to the intended permanent character of the settlements. The roads, which Palestinians are forbidden to use, and a pervasive system of roadblocks and checkpoints, prevent Palestinians - but not Israeli settlers - from moving from place to place in the West Bank, and they isolate Palestinian communities by cutting them off from one another. Israel’s settlement expansion has thus both uprooted Palestinians from their homes to make room for new settlements, and forced them to live in disconnected and non-contiguous enclaves, which the Special Rapporteur has called

 

“a fragmented archipelago of 165 disparate patches of land”. This achieves the fundamental objective of the occupation: permanent acquisition of the maximum amount of Palestinian territory, with the minimum number of Palestinians in it.

 

22. In furtherance of this objective, and with increasing frequency, armed groups of settlers, supported by Israel’s occupation forces and encouraged by government ministers, have violently expelled thousands of peaceful Palestinian civilians from their ancestral villages and lands. A United Nations Fact Finding Mission confirmed:

 

“[T]he motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians and their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand.”

 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in March 2023:

 

“[S]ettler violence further intensified, reaching the highest levels ever recorded by the United Nations.”

 

In November 2023, the High Commissioner warned that the situation had further deteriorated with “a sharp increase in settler violence and takeover of land across the West Bank. Since 7 October,” he continued, “nearly 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been forced from their homes”.

 

23. The Secretary-General, in his most recent report, issued on 25 October 2023, expressly linked the expansion of Israeli settlements to the permanent acquisition of Palestinian territory:

 

“[S]uccessive Israeli Governments have consistently advanced and implemented policies of settlement expansion and takeover of Palestinian land.

 

The policies of the current Government in this regard are aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long- term control over the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and, in practice, to further integrate those areas within the territory of the State of Israel.”

 

V. Application of the law to the facts

 

24. Mr President, Members of the Court, taking account of this evidence, as well as that described in the State of Palestine’s two written submissions, I turn to the law and how it applies to this occupation. The Written Statement of Switzerland is, once again, directly on point. It highlights the distinction between the law of occupation and the legality of a particular occupation:

 

“The law of occupation and the legality of occupation are two different questions. The law of occupation applies independently of the question of the legality of the occupation. Occupation is a situation subject to international humanitarian law, whereas its legality is covered by the United Nations Charter.”

 

25. In relation to the legality of the occupation under the Charter, Switzerland observes:

 

“The United Nations has consistently reaffirmed the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, and condemned Israeli measures aimed at modifying the demographic composition, the character and the status of Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, notably the construction and extension of settlements, the transfer of Israeli settlers, the confiscation of land, the demolition of homes and the displacement of Palestinian civilians.”

 

In Switzerland’s view:

 

“The measures taken by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory lead to fundamental changes, particularly demographic changes, that can have a permanent character.” In such circumstances, Switzerland expressly invites the Court “to rule on the consequences of the permanent character of the measures taken by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as to the status of the occupation under general international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations”.

 

26. Many States agree with this approach. France, too, underscores the temporary character of lawful occupation. This is a requirement that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory plainly fails to meet. As France states:

 

“[I]f the restrictions authorised by a regime of occupation were justifiable in the period following the military operations, they are not any more today. These points have been reiterated by the Security Council and the General Assembly on numerous occasions concerning Israel’s obligation to withdraw from the ‘occupied’ territories.”

 

27. France calls out, in particular, Israel’s annexation of occupied territory:

 

“The status of occupying power does not confer any legal title justifying annexation . . . The passage of time is not sufficient, as regards the acquisition of territory by force, to render lawful a situation that is gravely unlawful.”

 

On Israel’s vast network of settlements and hundreds of thousands of settlers in the occupied territory, France states:

 

“These permanent establishments are obviously incompatible with the necessarily temporary character of the occupation.”

 

28. Thirty-five of the States and international organizations that submitted written statements have addressed the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Only two of these 35, to which I will come, argued that the occupation is not unlawful. Key excerpts reflecting the views expressed by the overwhelming majority - that the occupation is unlawful as a whole and must be brought to an end - are collected in Chapter 2 of the State of Palestine’s Written Comments. Here are three brief but emblematic examples:

 

29. The African Union

 

“invites the Court to conclude that the prolonged Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is, in itself, unlawful . . . [T]he policies and practices associated with it amount to de facto and de jure annexation of the Palestinian territories, which violates the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force.”

 

30. Brazil observes that:

 

“Occupation is inherently temporary. This is the basic distinction between occupation and annexation.”

 

Brazil, here, hits the nail right on the head: unlike occupation, annexation is intended to be permanent, and it makes the occupation itself unlawful. In Brazil’s words, Israel’s policies and practices

 

“render the occupation unlawful as a whole, inasmuch as it would be tantamount to the acquisition of territory by force”.

 

31. Japan, too, emphasizes that the annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, referring to Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter:

 

“As the ICJ clarified in the Wall Advisory Opinion, the illegality of the acquisition of territory by force is a corollary of the prohibition of use of force incorporated in the UN Charter”,

 

which Japan calls

 

“the most fundamental rule of the post-war regime for peace based on the rule of law among nations”.

 

VI. The indefensibility of Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory

 

32. The two outliers are Fiji and the United States. Of all the States that submitted written statements to the Court, only Fiji attempted to defend the occupation as lawful. But even Fiji conceded that Israel has annexed East Jerusalem de jure and that the application of an occupying Power’s laws to the occupied territory, which is the case in the West Bank, constitutes an annexation de facto. Nor did Israel itself deny its annexations of Jerusalem and the West Bank. Its abbreviated written statement is mainly an attack on the General Assembly for its alleged bias. It makes no attempt to defend the legality of its occupation under international law.

 

33. The only State besides Fiji to defend Israel is the United States. This is not surprising. Whatever offences against international law Israel commits, the United States comes forward to shield it from accountability. Here, the United States attempts to defend Israel, not by arguing that the occupation is lawful, but that it is neither lawful nor unlawful. To reach this conclusion, the United States argues that belligerent occupation is governed exclusively by international humanitarian law and not by the United Nations Charter or general international law. In its own words:

 

“Although international humanitarian law imposes obligations on belligerents in their conduct of an occupation, it does not provide for the legal status of an occupation to be lawful or unlawful.”

 

34. Even assuming, arguendo, that this is a correct reading of international humanitarian law, which we dispute, it does not lead to the conclusion that an occupation cannot be unlawful under international law. What about Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter, and general international law, including the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force? For the United States, apparently, this peremptory norm does not exist when it comes to Israel’s annexation and settlement of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Only in such a lawless - and United Nations Charter-less - world could the Israeli occupation be described as “not unlawful”.

 

35. Notably, the United States ignores the part of the General Assembly’s request that the Court determine the legal status of the occupation under the United Nations Charter, in addition to international humanitarian law and other sources of law; and the United States fails to mention, let alone respond to, Switzerland’s Written Statement, asserting that belligerent occupation is covered both by international humanitarian law and by the United Nations Charter and general international law; and that the legality of the occupation itself is governed by the latter. The United States also ignores the written statements of the many other States which conclude that the Israeli occupation is unlawful as a whole, precisely because its annexation and settlement of the occupied territory constitute a permanent acquisition of territory by force in violation of Article 2 (4) and general international law.

 

36. Instead, in a single footnote, the United States responds only to those States which submitted that the Israeli occupation is unlawful under Articles 40 and 41 of the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. Remarkably, the United States contends that neither of those two articles reflects general international law. This is truly stunning! A persistent failure of a State to fulfil an obligation arising under a peremptory norm is not unlawful under general international law, as provided in Article 40? The injunction in Article 41 - that no State shall recognize as lawful a situation created by a serious breach of a peremptory norm - is not part of general international law? Just how far in disregarding the international legal order will the United States go to exempt Israel from the consequences of its ongoing violation of peremptory norms, including the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force?

 

37. Apparently, very far indeed. According to former US President Barack Obama, in the

memoir he published in 2020:

 

“[J]ust about every country in the world considered Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories to be a violation of international law. As a result, our diplomats found themselves in the awkward position of having to defend Israel for actions that we ourselves opposed.”

 

This is exactly what the United States is doing - again - in these proceedings.

 

VII. The occupation is unlawful and must be brought to an end

 

38. Mr President, Members of the Court, the evidence is before you - in the written submissions of the State of Palestine and dozens of other States and international organizations, and in the voluminous materials supplied to you by the Secretary-General - and it is indisputable. Under the umbrella of its prolonged military occupation, Israel has been steadily annexing the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and it continues to do so. Its undisguised objective is the permanent acquisition of this territory, and the exercise of sovereignty over it, in defiance of the prohibition on acquisition of territory by force.

 

39. The evidence is not only indisputable, it is of the highest probative value: investigative reports of authoritative United Nations agencies; reports of the Secretary-General; resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly; legislative and administrative acts by the Israeli Government; and public statements against interest by the most senior government officials admitting that Israel’s objective is sovereignty over all the territory east of the Green Line and its incorporation into a single Jewish State from the river to the sea. In this case, there is no reason not to take them at their word, because their deeds have been entirely consistent with it.

 

40. For Israel, as its successive governments have made clear, there is no Palestine. It simply does not exist. In November 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that his Government would never agree to a Palestinian State in the occupied territory. He later declared:

 

“I will not compromise on full security control over all the territory west of Jordan - and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.”

 

Israel’s intransigence was confirmed by its staunchest ally in December 2023, when US President Joe Biden publicly lamented that Israel’s leaders “don’t want anything remotely approaching a two-state solution”.

 

41. That is the very solution demanded by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the overwhelming majority of States and the State of Palestine itself. It is, in fact, the only solution that can lead to lasting peace and security for the Israeli people as well as the Palestinian people. And it is this very solution that has been frustrated by Israel’s defiant insistence on maintaining its dominion over Palestinian territory in perpetuity. This is why the Court’s advisory opinion is so critical and so urgent. The best, and possibly the last, hope for the two-State solution that is so vital to the needs of both peoples is for the Court to declare illegal the main obstacle to that solution - the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine - and for it to pronounce, in the clearest possible terms, that international law requires that this entire illegal enterprise be terminated: completely, unconditionally and immediately.

 

42. Mr President, the law is clear and it demands nothing less. A permanent occupation - one that is founded upon annexation and massive settlement of the occupied territory, and which aims to exercise sovereignty over it - is manifestly and gravely unlawful; it is an ongoing international wrong that must be brought to an immediate end. As the Court ruled in 1971:

 

“[T]he continued presence of South Africa in Namibia being illegal, South Africa is under obligation to withdraw its administration from Namibia immediately and thus put an end to its occupation of the Territory”.

 

43. The Secretary-General applied this principle directly to Palestine in his remarks to the Security Council one month ago:

 

“Palestinians must see their legitimate aspirations for a fully independent, viable and sovereign State realized, in line with United Nations resolutions, international law and previous agreements. Israel’s occupation must end.”

 

44. Mr President, the proverbial ball is now in your court. The General Assembly has asked you the critical questions. It is now your responsibility to answer them. Silence is not an option. As the immortal Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, wrote: “In silence we become accomplices.” But, he assured us, when we speak: “Every word has the power to change the world.”

 

45. Mr President, Members of the Court, your words have such power. In 2004, the Court affirmed the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. In 2024, it is time for you to enable them finally to exercise that right, by freeing them from the unlawful Israeli occupation of their territory, so that they may live in a sovereign and fully independent State of their own, in peaceful and secure coexistence with all their neighbours, including Israel. By upholding international law, which is all the State of Palestine asks you to do, your powerful words will change the world.

 

46. I thank you Mr President, Members of the Court, for your kind courtesy and patient attention. We are in your hands, Mr President, whether you would like to take the mid-morning break now or call our next speaker.

 

The PRESIDENT: I thank Mr Reichler. I will invite the next speaker to take the floor after a coffee break of ten minutes. The sitting is suspended.

 

The Court adjourned from 11.25 a.m. to 11.45 a.m.

Done