A view of the Peace Palace, which homes the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, on Jan. 26, 2024.

Patrick Post/AP

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Patrick Post/AP

A view of the Peace Palace, which homes the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, on Jan. 26, 2024.

Patrick Post/AP

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The United Nations’ highest courtroom opens historic hearings Monday into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of lands searched for a Palestinian state, plunging the 15 worldwide judges again into the guts of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian battle.

Six days of hearings are scheduled on the International Court of Justice, throughout which an unprecedented variety of nations will take part, as Israel continues its devastating assault on Gaza.

Though the case happens in opposition to the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas conflict, it focuses as an alternative on Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

Palestinian representatives, who converse first on Monday, will argue that the Israeli occupation is prohibited as a result of it has violated three key tenets of worldwide regulation, the Palestinian authorized workforce instructed reporters Wednesday.

They say that Israel has violated the prohibition on territorial conquest by annexing massive swaths of occupied land, has violated the Palestinians’ proper to self-determination, and has imposed a system of racial discrimination and apartheid.

“We want to hear new words from the court,” stated Omar Awadallah, the top of the U.N. organizations division within the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

“They’ve had to consider the word genocide in the South Africa case,” he stated, referring to a separate case earlier than the courtroom. “Now we want them to consider apartheid.”

Awadallah stated an advisory opinion from the courtroom “will give us many tools, using peaceful international law methods and tools, to confront the illegalities of the occupation.”

The courtroom will doubtless take months to rule. But consultants say the choice, although not legally binding, might profoundly impression worldwide jurisprudence, worldwide assist to Israel and public opinion.

“The case will put before the court a litany of accusations and allegations and grievances which are probably going to be uncomfortable and embarrassing for Israel, given the war and the already very polarized international environment,” stated Yuval Shany, a regulation professor at Hebrew University and senior fellow on the Israel Democracy Institute.

Israel is just not scheduled to talk throughout the hearings, however might submit a written assertion. Shany stated Israel will doubtless justify the continuing occupation on safety grounds, particularly within the absence of a peace deal.

It is prone to level to the Oct. 7 assault wherein Hamas-led militants from Gaza killed 1,200 individuals throughout southern Israel and dragged 250 hostages again to the territory.

“There is this narrative that territories from which Israel withdraws, like Gaza, can potentially transform into very serious security risks,” Shany stated. “If anything, Oct. 7 underscored the traditional Israeli security rationale to justify unending occupation.”

But Palestinians and main rights teams say the occupation goes far past defensive measures. They say it has morphed into an apartheid system, bolstered by settlement constructing on occupied lands, that offers Palestinians second-class standing and is designed to take care of Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel rejects any accusation of apartheid.

The case arrives on the courtroom after the U.N. General Assembly voted by a large margin in December 2022 to ask the world courtroom for a non-binding advisory opinion on one of many world’s longest-running and thorniest disputes. The request was promoted by the Palestinians and opposed vehemently by Israel. Fifty nations abstained from voting.

In a written assertion earlier than the vote, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan referred to as the measure “outrageous,” the U.N. “morally bankrupt and politicized” and any potential resolution from the courtroom “completely illegitimate.”

After the Palestinians current their arguments, 51 nations and three organizations — the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the African Union will deal with the panel of judges within the wood-paneled Great Hall of Justice.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip within the 1967 Mideast conflict. The Palestinians search all three areas for an impartial state. Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, whose future ought to be determined in negotiations.

It has constructed 146 settlements, in keeping with watchdog group Peace Now, house to greater than 500,000 Jewish settlers. The West Bank settler inhabitants has grown by greater than 15% within the final 5 years in keeping with a pro-settler group.

Israel additionally has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the complete metropolis to be its capital. An extra 200,000 Israelis dwell in settlements in-built east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of town face systematic discrimination, making it tough for them to construct new houses or broaden present ones.

The worldwide neighborhood overwhelmingly considers the settlements to be unlawful. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, house to town’s most delicate holy websites, is just not internationally acknowledged.

It’s not the primary time the courtroom has been requested to present an advisory opinion on Israeli insurance policies or to declare an occupation unlawful.

In 2004, the courtroom stated {that a} separation barrier Israel constructed via east Jerusalem and components of the West Bank was “contrary to international law.” It additionally referred to as on Israel to right away halt building. Israel has ignored the ruling.

In a 1971 case the Palestinian authorized workforce is probably going to attract from, the courtroom issued an advisory opinion discovering that the South African occupation of Namibia was unlawful, and stated that South Africa needed to instantly withdraw from the nation.

Also, late final month, the courtroom ordered Israel to do all it might probably to forestall loss of life, destruction and any acts of genocide in its marketing campaign in Gaza. South Africa filed the case accusing Israel of genocide, a cost that Israel denied.

South African representatives are scheduled to talk Tuesday. The nation’s governing occasion, the African National Congress, has lengthy in contrast Israel’s insurance policies in Gaza and the West Bank to the apartheid regime of white minority rule in South Africa, which restricted most Black individuals to “homelands” earlier than ending in 1994.