Al Jazeera: ICJ Day 6
ICJ: Israel-Palestine conflict did not start on October 7 – Yildiz
Turkey’s representative at the ICJ hearing says the conflict could have been settled by now if international law and human rights law had been upheld and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people had been recognised.
“The conflict is not about a certain Palestinian faction or group. The conflict dates back to an earlier century,” he says.
“The real obstacle to peace is obvious,” he adds, identifying the “deepening occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories” and a failure to implement a two-state solution as the underlying issues.
Israeli attacks on holy sites encouraged by politicians, says Yildiz
Turkey’s legal representative highlights Israeli actions that have violated the sanctity of holy sites, including Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He claims incidents such as the storming of the mosque by settlers were a response to “heinous calls by Israeli politicians”.
In his closing comments, he says Turkey is concerned by the Israeli government’s plan to limit access for Muslims to holy sites during the holy month of Ramadan.
ICJ: A solution should not ‘put the blame squarely on one party’, says Zambia
Zambia’s solicitor general, Marshal Mubambe Muchende, says his country recognises the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination as well as the legitimate security needs of the Israeli people.
He adds that both have a duty to respect international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
He concludes that a solution to the conflict should not place “blame squarely on one party” but rather advance a negotiated solution that would culminate in a two-state solution.
ICJ: Israeli occupation an ‘affront to international justice’ – League of Arab States
The organisation’s representative, Abdel Hakim El Rifai, tells the World Court that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is the “last oppressive, expansionist apartheid settler colonial occupation still standing in the 21st century”.
“This prolonged occupation is an affront to international justice. The failure to bring it to an end has led to the current horrors perpetrated against the Palestinian people, amounting to genocide.
“There can be no moral or juridical justification for occupying lands, killing, terrorising and displacing their populations.
“Only the rule of law, not the prevailing law of the jungle, will pave the way to peace in the whole region.
“Ending the occupation is the gateway to peaceful coexistence”.
ICJ: Israel perpetrates ‘racial domination’ against Palestinians, says Arab League
Ralph Wilde, second representative of the League of Arab States (LAS), begins by saying the “Palestinian people have been denied the exercise of their legal right to self-determination through the more than century-long, violent, colonial racist effort to establish a nation-state exclusively for the Jewish people in the land of Mandatory Palestine”.
His presentation then addresses the violations of international law arising out of the Israeli regime of what he describes as “racial domination and apartheid perpetrated against the Palestinian people”.
He then looks at the “existential illegality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem since 1967”.
ICJ: Arab League concludes oral arguments with words by poet killed in Israeli air strike
In his closing remarks, Ralph Wilde says: “There is no backdoor legal basis for Israel to maintain the occupation, through the imperatives of occupation and human rights law.”
He then concludes his presentation by quoting Refaat Alareer, the Palestinian writer, poet and activist who was killed in an Israeli bombardment of Gaza in December.
“If I must die, you must live to tell my story. If I must die, let it bring hope. Let it be a story.”
ICJ: OIC calls for peace based on ‘two-state solution’
Hissein Brahim Taha, secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), says the body condemns the Israeli aggression on Gaza, which he said has given “rise to massive war crimes and a risk of genocide”.
He then denounced crimes committed by Israel in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Taha then said the OIC calls on a “just lasting and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution”.
He also requested that countries “cease exporting arms and munitions to the occupation authorities, knowing that the army and the settlers are using them against the Palestinian people”.
OIC calls on ICJ to bring Israeli-Palestinian conflict ‘back under the spotlight of the law’
“Israel’s unjustified and unpunished use of violence against the Palestinians leads to more violence in response” that, in turn, leads to an “infernal cycle of vengeance”, says the OIC’s second representative Monique Chemillier-Gendreau.
“Vengeance naturally favours the strongest. This is the murderous chain of events tragically taking place,” she said, adding that an impartial third party was needed to break this chain.
“It falls to your court when you hand down this opinion to bring all of this conflict back under the spotlight of the law,” Chemillier-Gendreau said.
Israel’s war on Gaza ‘shameful attempt to create another Nakba’: AU tells ICJ
The African Union’s first representative, Hajer Gueldich, says “nothing can justify the unspeakable suffering and horrors inflicted on the population of Gaza”.
She also said the Palestinian people have been “the victims of subjugation, displacement and dispossession”.
The Israeli “ruthless war machine” has led to the devastation of the Palestinian population, schools, places of worship, homes and hospitals, Gueldich said.
This case, Gueldich argued, is an opportunity for the court to end Israel’s “impunity”.
In her closing remarks, she reminded the ICJ that the case did not hinge on a dispute between two “equal parties, but an asymmetrical situation in which an oppressed people is confronted with an occupying power”.
International community let Palestinian people down: African Union at ICJ
The African Union’s second representative, Professor Mohamed Helal, reiterates the bloc’s call to end Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
“The injustice being wrought against the people of Gaza makes it imperative to end Israel’s impunity and hold it accountable for the rule of law,” he said.
Helal warned that “the court of history may very well judge the credibility of international law on the basis of the outcome of these proceedings”.
“The international community has let down the Palestinian people, but the African Union has faith that in this court; justice will prevail,” he said.
“The betrayal of the sacred trust, that is, the self-determination of the Palestinian people, is an enduring injustice that pleads to be remedied,” he concluded.
