‘IN THE beginning was the word,’ John 1:1 commences like Genesis, connecting the God of Israel to the word. And the deliverance of the word is confirmed by the Ten Commandments being physically handed to Moses and the Israelites, legend has it, on Mount Sinai. It was a defining moment in Jewish reverence for words and the law. But much has changed since those Biblical times.
The United Nations General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice to give a non-binding advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate aid into Palestinian territory. Starting April 28, for one week, diplomats and lawyers from 40 countries and three multilateral organisations argued in the Hague to try to force Israel to allow aid to enter. Once again Israel chose to ignore the ICJ, considered the World Court. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar called it ‘another shameful proceeding’ meant to delegitimise Israel.
How to understand Israel’s continuing defiance of international law, including its blockade of aid to Palestinians? Since March 2, 2025, Israel has cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million people still trapped in the Gaza Strip. Stockpiles of food have virtually run out. ‘It’s about the survival of millions of Palestinians,’ Alain Pellet, an advocate for Palestine and an eminent French professor and international lawyer, pleaded before the Court.
The hearings were technical, legal arguments about Israel’s obligations as the occupying power in Gaza and the West Bank and as a member of the United Nations. The precise title of the hearings was ‘Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organisations and Third States in and relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’ The GA demand for an advisory opinion resulted from the October 2024 Israeli parliament’s vote that prohibits the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
UN legal counsel Elinor Hammarskjöld said Israel has clear obligations as an occupying force to facilitate aid under international humanitarian law. ‘These obligations,’ she said, ‘entail allowing all relevant UN entities to carry out activities for the benefit of the local population.’
Other experts agreed. ‘Israel must facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian provision to the population of Gaza, including food, water and electricity, and must ensure access to medical care in accordance with international humanitarian law,’ Sally Langrish, legal director and advisor at the UK’s foreign office, argued, specifically citing articles 59 and 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that outlines the obligations of an occupying power. ‘The occupying power must facilitate relief schemes by all means at its disposal,’ she added. ‘This obligation is unconditional.’
Already in July 2024, the ICJ had ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem was illegal under international law. In an advisory opinion, the Court ordered Israel to end its occupying presence as well as to make reparations for damages done. ‘This illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967,’ the court said in a statement.
Not having followed the 2024 ICJ opinion about its occupation, how does Israel now justify not allowing aid into the occupied territories? Israel maintains that UNRWA should not be allowed to function. In January 2024, Israel accused 12 UNRWA workers of involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks. However, a UN investigation of the accusations, published in April 2024, found no evidence of wrongdoing. The report noted that Israel had not responded to requests for names and information or given evidence of any previous concerns about UNRWA. UNRWA has denied these accusations, saying there is ‘absolutely no ground for a blanket description of ‘the institution as a whole’ being ‘totally infiltrated.’’
My former colleague and former secretary-general of the Institute of International Law, Marcelo Kohen, representing Jordan, pleaded before the Court that, ‘Israel’s primary obligation is to respect the Palestinian’s people’s right to self-determination.’ That is, Israel should not ‘hinder the realisation of this right, to adopt all necessary and measures to protect the Palestinian civilian population.’Ìý According to Kohen, Israel, cannot obstruct the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, a right confirmed by GA Resolution 78/192 of December 2023.
On the other side, the US argued that ‘There are serious concerns about UNRWA’s impartiality, including information that Hamas has used UNRWA facilities and that UNRWA staff participated in the 7 October terrorist attack against Israel,’ according to Josh Simmons, of the U.S. State Department legal team. ‘Given these concerns, it is clear that Israel has no obligation to permit UNRWA specifically to provide humanitarian assistance. UNRWA is not the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza,’ he added. Israel boycotted the hearings but submitted written objections. (The US and Hungary were the only countries that supported Israel’s position before the Court.)
What are the constraints on an occupying power? According to a US State Department legal adviser; ‘An occupational power retains a margin of appreciation concerning which relief schemes to permit. Even if an organisation offering relief is an impartial humanitarian organisation, and even if it is a major actor, occupation law does not compel an occupational power to allow and facilitate that specific actor’s relief operations.’
But Marcelo Kohen and the renown international jurist and legal scholar Georges Abi-Saab refuted this argument in a commentary in EJIL TALK!: ‘When occupation ceases to be a provisional factual situation and turns into an open-ended political project, the rules of military occupation no longer apply… The protection afforded to the civilian population, the territory, and its resources is then governed – more comprehensively – by other bodies of international law, notably international human rights law, the right to self-determination, and the right to humanitarian assistance, none of which permit derogation in the name of military necessity or the security interests of the occupying power.’
In addition to the legal questions about Israel’s blocking aid and its obligations as an occupying power, there are larger legal and moral questions about Israel’s actions since October 7, 2023. Already in January 2024, The ICJ found it ‘plausible’ that Israel had committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention. The Court’s president, Joan Donoghue, delivered a provisional order that Israel must ensure, ‘with immediate effect,’ that its forces not commit any of the acts prohibited by the Convention. (Just recently, on May 4, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel, once again, is ‘on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza.’)
Furthermore, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister on November 21, 2024, for being ‘Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.’
As far as the United States’ continuing complicity with Israel is concerned, during an early April 2025 drop by to the White House, Netanyahu said; ‘This was a very productive visit, a very warm visit…’ ‘[W]arm visit’ to Washington by someone ‘Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts’?
Ìý(As a reminder about Trump and respect for the law: He swore on January 20, 2025, ‘I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ When asked in a recent television interview whether, as president, he needed to ‘uphold the Constitution of the United States,’ Trump replied, ‘I don’t know.’)
Israel, a self-proclaimed Jewish state, should be an example of respect for the rule of law. Its defiance of the ICJ and ICC, and continuing alliance with the United States’ non-respect for the rule of law is contrary to all the country claims to be as well as contrary to the very foundations of its religious and cultural heritage.
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Counterpunch.org, May 9. Daniel Warner is the author of ‘An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations’.
