One year after ICJ ruling, UN experts urge States to confront inaction over Israel’s unlawful occupation

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On the anniversary of the adoption of the General Assembly resolution following the ICJ ruling on Palestine, UN experts* urged Member States to comply with their obligations under international law, take concrete actions to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation. They issued the following joint statement:

“We are appalled that, despite the overwhelming support at the UN General Assembly for the resolution based on the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of July 2024, which declared Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Territory unlawful and affirmed that all States are obliged not to recognise, aid, or assist the decades-long occupation. The situation today continues to be apocalyptic, with the Palestinian people facing an existential threat.

The resolution set out clear responsibilities for third States and international organisations, including the UN system, in relation to Israel’s unlawful occupation. It called on Israel to comply with international law by withdrawing its military forces, halting all new settlement activity, evacuating settlers from occupied land, dismantling sections of the separation wall built inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and ending the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources. The resolution clarified that any State that continues to aid, assist, or otherwise contribute to the occupation and its related violations risks breaching international law and becoming complicit in international crimes.

The one-year anniversary of the resolution comes at the bleakest of times. Seven hundred days of a military assault on the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory has killed and injured at least 230,000 Palestinians. 2.1 million civilians in the besieged enclave are literally starving. The whole of Gaza has been reduced to rubble and the entire population has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times. The failure of most Member States to act decisively exposes the deep erosion of the multilateral system that has been reduced to becoming the collateral damage of the Gaza genocide.

In recent months, the collective and far-reaching nature of the unfolding genocide has become undeniable – marked by mass killings, unspeakable suffering, and large-scale destruction. The violence is no longer confined to Gaza; it is spilling into the West Bank, where forced mass displacement and brutal attacks by armed settlers cannot be dismissed as the actions of a few rogue officials but are aided and abetted by the State at every level. Every branch of the Israeli State – it’s Executive, Parliament, and Courts – have failed to restrain or remedy this abuse of power. Instead, they have perpetuated and advanced the catastrophe, built – as with every genocide before it – on the systematic dehumanisation of an entire people.

The time to stop this genocide is long past. We are dismayed that Member States did not take the obligation to prevent a genocide seriously. Israel’s continued impunity and the failure to stop the monstrous crimes being committed against Palestinians has set the stage for further aggression by Israel against other countries in the region. It should have been stopped before Rafah was invaded; before Israel attacked several countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has concluded in a report published this week that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Yet instead of action, a world that is now fully awake to the horror of genocide and the injustice of occupation and apartheid is confronted with silence, or worse, justification from a small but powerful group of States that continue to enable Israel’s assault on Gaza, on international law, on the multilateral system and on humanity itself.

In this heartbreaking moment, we remind the international community of the recommendations that we highlighted in a statement issued on 18 September 2024 and recall the Position Paper issued by the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.

To comply with the Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice affirmed the need to cut ties with the unlawful occupation. This means that sanctions cannot be avoided, including on Israel, on individuals and on businesses doing business with a genocidal regime:

• Israel must be removed from the United Nations;
• Economic and military relations must be cut, including through preventing trade or investment relations and cultural ties with Israeli actors that promote the occupation or benefit from it;
• States must not recognise and reverse any recognition of changes in status of the occupied Palestinian territory;
• A full arms embargo must be imposed on Israel, halting all arms agreements, imports, exports and transfers, including dual-use items that could be used against the Palestinian population under occupation, in line with the reminder issued to all States in Nicaragua v Germany; and
• States must prevent, investigate and prosecute all citizens and visitors in their jurisdiction who serve or have served in or for the Israeli military and contributed to the occupation, apartheid and genocide regime, including through buying property in occupied territory.

The longer States maintain these ties, the more they entrench normalisation and legitimise illegality – all the while fostering impunity and rendering themselves complicit in international crimes.”