ISRAEL is killing and displacing civilians, as well as targeting aid workers in Gaza, a Palestinian diplomat has told the United Nations’ top court.
In The Hague, Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi accused Israel of breaching international law in the occupied territories as he spoke on the first day of a five-day hearing at the International Court of Justice.
Israel has refused to take part in the hearing on whether it is breaking its legal obligation to facilitate humanitarian aid into occupied regions of Gaza and the West Bank.
The country, which in July last year the ICJ ruled was unlawfully occupying Palestinian territories, has claimed the legal cases against it are part of a campaign to remove “its most basic right to defend itself”.
Hijazi told the ICJ on Monday: “Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organisations trying to save their lives.”
The hearings are focused on a request last year from the UN General Assembly, which asked the court to weigh in on Israel’s legal responsibilities after the country blocked the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating on its territory.
In a resolution sponsored by Norway, the General Assembly requested an advisory opinion, a non-binding but legally important decision from the court, on Israel’s obligations in the occupied territories to “ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population”.
Lawyer Paul Reichler, representing the Palestinians, told judges that one of the Geneva Conventions “not only lays down that the occupying power must agree to relief schemes on behalf of the population, but insists that it must facilitate them by all the means at its disposal”.
UN undersecretary-general for legal affairs Elinor Hammarskjold said earlier that “measures taken by the occupying power to ensure its security must be exercised in a manner that would not deny impartial humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations the ability to carry out relief schemes”.
It renewed its bombardment on March 18, breaking a ceasefire, and seized large parts of the territory, saying it aims to push Hamas to release more hostages.
The World Food Programme said last week that its food stocks in the Gaza Strip have run out under Israel’s eight-week-old blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory. Many families are struggling to feed their children.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court amid allegations of "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare" as well as other crimes against humanity.
The United Nations was the first to address the court on Monday, followed by Palestinian representatives.
In total, 40 states and four international organisations are scheduled to participate. Israel is not due to speak during the hearings, but could submit a written statement.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who this month secretly visited the UK to meet with Labour ministers, said: “I accuse UNRWA. I accuse the UN. I accuse the secretary general, I accuse all those that weaponise international law and its institutions in order to deprive the most attacked country in the world, Israel, of its most basic right to defend itself.”
Calling the hearing a “shameful proceeding against Israel”, Sa’ar added that his country would not “take part in this circus”.
The United States, which voted against the UN resolution, is scheduled to speak on Wednesday.
The court is likely to take months to deliver a ruling, but experts say the decision, though not legally binding, could profoundly affect international jurisprudence, international aid to Israel and public opinion.
“Advisory opinions provide clarity,” Juliette McIntyre, an expert on international law at the University of South Australia, told The Associated Press. Governments rely on them in international negotiations and the outcome could be used to pressure Israel into easing restrictions on aid.
Whether any ruling will have an effect on Israel, however, is unclear.
Israel has long accused the United Nations of being unfairly biased against it and has ignored rulings that the occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful.
On Tuesday, South Africa, a staunch critic of Israel, will present its arguments.
In hearings last year in a separate case at the court, the country accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza – a charge Israel denies. Those proceedings are still under way.
Israel’s ban on the UN relief agency in Palestine, known as UNRWA, came into effect in January.
The organisation has faced increased criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who claim the group is deeply infiltrated by Hamas. UNRWA rejects that claim.
Israel alleged that 19 out of UNRWA’s approximately 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on October 7 2023, which killed about 1200 people.
UNRWA said it fired nine employees after an internal UN investigation concluded they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated and corroborated.
Israel later alleged that about 100 other Palestinians in Gaza were Hamas members, but never provided any evidence to the United Nations.
Israel has also accused Hamas of using UN facilities for cover, building tunnels near UN buildings and diverting aid deliveries for its own use.
The Israeli ban does not apply directly to Gaza, but it controls all entry to the territory, and its ban on UNRWA from operating inside Israel greatly limits the agency’s ability to function.
Israeli officials say they are looking for alternative ways to deliver aid to Gaza that would cut out the United Nations.
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel during the war surrounding Israel’s creation the previous year until there is a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The agency has been providing aid and services – including health and education – to some 2.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as three million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Israel’s air and ground war has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
