26 February 2024; MEMO: Public hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s Occupation of Palestine concluded on Monday after a week of oral statements by dozens of countries, including Turkiye, and three international organisations, Anadolu Agency reports.
“The public hearings on the request for an advisory opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, concluded today,” the top UN Court said in a statement.
Along with Palestine, 49 other states, including Turkiye, the US, the UK, France and the Netherlands, and three international organisations – the Arab League, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and African Union – presented oral statements in The Hague.
“The Court will now begin its deliberation. The Court’s advisory opinion will be delivered at a public sitting, the date of which will be announced in due course,” the top UN Court said.
The hearings started last Monday in The Hague, following the UN General Assembly’s request for an advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel to the World Court in late December and asked for emergency measures to end the bloodshed in Gaza, where nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October.
The Court, in January, ordered Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza but fell short of ordering a ceasefire.
It also ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective” measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.
A cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group, Hamas, on 7 October killed an estimated 1,200 people, but the ensuing Israeli offensive into Gaza has pushed 85 per cent of the Territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
Despite an international outcry, Israel now plans a ground invasion of Rafah, which holds 1.4 million refugees.
For the first time since its establishment in 1948, Israel is being tried before the ICJ, the highest judicial body in the UN, on charges of committing the crime of “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.
