Palestine ‘brings memories of SA’ sstruggle’
SA’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel had long been “in defiance of international law” in its conduct in the Palestinian territories.
“Palestinians’ struggle evokes mournful memories of our own struggle against apartheid, segregation and oppression,” Madonsela said on Tuesday.
SA is one of 52 states presenting oral arguments to the court on the legal consequences of what Palestine says is Israel’s decades-long occupation of its territories.
The ICJ is being asked to determine the legal consequences of more than 50 years of Israel’s conduct in the Palestinian territories and to what extent, if any, Israel has violated international law.
Israel refused to participate, issuing a statement on Monday noting that “Israel does not recognise the legitimacy of the discussion at the ICJ”.
Before SA presented, Palestinian representatives opened the hearings on Monday.
“For over a century, the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination has been denied and violated,” Riyad al-Maliki, Palestine’s foreign minister, told the 15-judge bench, which includes SA’s first permanent judge, Dire Tladi.
This is Tladi’s first case as an ICJ judge.
Maliki and other representatives listed alleged international law violations against Palestinians, noting maps of the Palestinian territory “shrinking”, photos and other material.
Philippe Sands, a renowned British lawyer and international law professor, was part of the Palestinian team. “The right of self-determination,” he told the judges, “requires that UN member states bring Israel’s occupation to an immediate end.”
Commenting on Monday’s hearing, Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign affairs ministry, said on social media that Palestine was “distorting reality and avoiding direct negotiations”.
After the hearings end next week, the ICJ will deliberate and then produce a non-binding advisory opinion to the UN General Assembly, which the assembly requested in December 2022. “Advisory opinions carry great legal weight and moral authority,” the ICJ says on its official website. “They are often an instrument of preventive diplomacy and help to keep the peace.”
This week’s hearings are separate from SA’s urgent genocide case against Israel. That case was decided in January, with the ICJ ordering Israel to curb conduct by its forces and leaders that could be genocidal in Gaza, after Hamas attacked and killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians in October 2023.
Since then, an estimated 30,000 Palestinians had died, Madonsela said. Israel claims it is acting in self-defence and targeting Hamas.
The ICJ on Friday reaffirmed its January order, after SA urgently noted Israel’s escalated military operations in Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than half of the Palestinian population fled. Israel said SA was misusing the ICJ.
On Tuesday, advocate Andreas Stemmet, SA’s acting chief state law adviser in the department of international relations, pointed to various UN resolutions that confirmed Palestinians have the right to selfdetermination. Since 1967, he said, Israel “annexed East Bank Jerusalem in that and same parts year of”the . West
He also noted no-one disputed that any form of “occupation must be temporary” , but a “56year occupation is not temporary”. As an occupying power, Israel “is not acting in the best interests of the population under occupation”.
Madonsela said Israel imposed a “system of racial oppression and apartheid”, arguing, for example, that Palestinians were most often subject to military courts without basic rights, while Israelis had the “benefit” of civilian courts and protections.
He pointed to a 2022 report by the UN’s own special rapporteur on Palestine, who found “Israel’s occupation has been conducted in profound defiance of international law and hundreds of UN resolutions, with scant pushback from the international community”.
Stemmet called for the court to recommend an “immediate, unconditional and complete end” to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and “allow for ... the rights of Palestinian people to self-determination”. He also asked the court to recommend third-party states “refrain from rendering assistance or aid” to Israel in its alleged breaches.
According to Palestine’s representatives, only two out of the 52 states presenting arguments to the ICJ support Israel’s stance: the US, and Fiji. The US will present its case on Wednesday and Fiji next Monday.