Third countries that enable Israel’s ‘illegal occupation’ of Palestinian territory and aid it despite warnings of war crimes and possible genocide in the Gaza Strip should be considered ‘complicit’, say UN experts United Nations.
“Israel’s internationally wrongful acts engage the responsibility of the State, not only of Israel, but of all States,” Navi Pillay, chair of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, said on Friday.
The commission released a new legal position paper detailing specific actions required following a recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declaring Israeli occupation since 1967 “unlawful.”
It also examines the implications of last month’s vote in the United Nations General Assembly demanding an end to the occupation within a year.
The three-person commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international law in Israel and the Palestinian territory, first outlined the obligations of Israel.
The General Assembly’s vote meant that Israel had an international legal obligation to cease all new settlement activity and dismantle existing settlements as quickly as possible, the commission noted.
“Israel must immediately put in place a comprehensive action plan that will physically evacuate all settlers from the occupied territory,” he said.
The commission also demanded that Israel “return land, titles and natural resources to Palestinians displaced since 1967.”
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and inhabited by approximately 700,000 Israeli settlers, including occupied East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have an Israeli building permit.
More than 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank. Their existence remains a major obstacle to the since-discontinued plans outlined in the Oslo Accords, which promised the gradual transfer of areas controlled by Israel to the Palestinians.
Violence by the Israeli army and settlers in the West Bank has increased since the start of the Israeli war in Gaza. Around three million Palestinians in the territory are subject to Israeli military rule.
Failure to prevent “genocide”?
Other countries also have a list of obligations to fulfill, according to the commission.
Pillay, a former top UN human rights official, said all countries are “obligated not to recognize the territorial or sovereignty claims made by Israel over the occupied territories.”
States are required to “distinguish in their relations between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and no country should “recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or place its diplomatic representatives to Israel in Jerusalem,” he said. -she declared.
States must also refrain from providing “aid or assistance to maintain the illegal occupation,” she said, adding that this includes any “financial, military and political aid or support.”
The commission also insisted that all states must comply with their “obligations under the Genocide Convention” and follow interim measures ordered by the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of having committed genocide in Gaza.
“The commission believes that all States are aware that Israel may or is committing internationally wrongful acts, both in its conduct of military operations in Gaza and in its illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” the position paper says.
“Thus, the commission believes that, unless States cease their aid and assistance to Israel in the commission of these acts, these States will be considered complicit in these internationally wrongful acts,” it adds.
Israel has long accused the independent UN commission of “systematic anti-Israeli discrimination.”
The commission stressed that the UN must also do more to ensure that Israel meets its obligations under international law.
He notably criticized the UN Security Council for its repeated inaction due to the veto exercised by one of its five permanent members, implicitly referring to the United States, Israel’s main ally.
“The committee believes that, when peremptory norms of international law are violated, the permanent members of the Security Council should not be allowed to exercise their veto because this is contrary to the obligation to respect peremptory norms of international law,” she declared. said.