ICJ finds Israeli settlement policies in Palestinian territories breach international law

Israel's settlement policies on Palestinian territories violate international law, the International Court of Justice in The Hague said on Friday.

The ICJ, or World Court, announced the finding in a non-binding advisory opinion on Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The top United Nations court said Israel's "unlawful policies and practices" in those regions were "in breach of the Israeli government's obligation to respect the right of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination" and that Israel should end its presence in occupied Palestinian territories as rapidly as possible as it considered it "illegal."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the findings in a post to X. He called The Hague's opinion "absurd" and claimed the court could not deny the "legal rights" of Israelis to live in their "ancestral home." Finally, he said Jewish people were not "occupiers in their own land," referring to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

The advisory opinion related to the legality of Israel's 57-year occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state. Although not legally binding, it could have more effect on other countries' opinions and bring about possible sanctions.

Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael think-tank in The Hague, said Friday's finding would "worsen the case for occupation and removes any kind of legal, political, philosophical underpinning of the Israeli expansion project."

He also suggested that it could make the case for more countries to recognize a state of Palestine, particularly in the Western world.

Israel and multiple other countries had rejected the court's capacity to issue an advisory opinion on the case previously.

The ICJ opinion comes on the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which is now stretching into its tenth month following the Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas that saw 1,200 killed and 250 hostages taken into Gaza. The responding air and land incursion in Gaza has resulted in about 38,000 deaths, according to health officials in the territory.