The United States criticised the “broadness” of the UN’s top court’s opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal. Washington said it would complicate efforts to resolve the conflict.
“We are clear that Israel’s government support program for settlements is inconsistent with international law and poses an obstacle to peace,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an email on Saturday.
“We are concerned, however, that the broadness of the Court’s opinion will complicate efforts to resolve the conflict,” the State Department said.
The International Court of Justice, or World Court, said on Friday that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and must be ended immediately, in its harshest conclusion yet on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The State Department said the ICJ’s opinion that Israel should withdraw from the Palestinian territories as soon as possible is “inconsistent with the established framework” for resolving the conflict.
Washington said the framework took into account Israel’s security needs, highlighted by attacks on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on October 7. According to Israeli figures, those attacks killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
Two-state solution
The advisory opinions of ICJ judges are not binding but have weight under international law and could weaken support for Israel.
The Foreign Ministry said that the way forward lies through direct talks only.
“Israeli settlements and their associated infrastructure in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been established and are maintained in violation of international law,” ICJ President Nawaf Salam said while reading out the findings of a panel of 15 judges on Friday.
The court said Israel’s obligations included paying compensation for damages and “evacuating all inhabitants from existing settlements”.
Israel rejected the opinion and said a political solution could only be found through negotiations. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office welcomed the opinion and called it historic.
The State Department said it “strongly discourages” parties from using the ICJ’s opinion “as a pretext for unilateral action that would deepen divisions or undermine the negotiated two-state solution.”
The ICJ case stems from a request to the UN General Assembly for a legal opinion in 2022. It predates Israel’s war in Gaza, which began after the October 7 attacks and has killed nearly 39,000 people according to the health ministry in Gaza, which is under Hamas rule, while creating a famine crisis, displacing almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and leading to accusations of genocide, which Israel denies.
The ICJ opinion states that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, and all states have an obligation not to recognize the occupation as legal nor “provide aid or assistance” to maintain Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem – which the Palestinians want as a state – in the Six-Day War in 1967 and has been building and expanding settlements in the West Bank ever since.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
