Israel vows action after UN sends Palestine plea to ICJ
The measures include using Palestinian money to compensate victims of atacks and imposing a moratorium on Palestinian construction in some areas of West Bank
Israel said on Friday it would take retaliatory steps in response to a Palestinian bid to involve the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the decades-old conflict.
The measures decided on by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing security cabinet include using Palestinian money to compensate victims of Palestinian atacks and imposing a moratorium on Palestinian construction in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
This comes as a “response to the Palestinian Authority’s decision to wage political and legal war against the State of Israel,” said Netanyahu’s office.
Last week, following an appeal by the Palestinians, the UN General Assembly asked the Hague-based World Court to give an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s 55-year-old occupation of Palestinian territories.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — areas the Palestinians want for a state — in the 1967 Middle East war.
It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but, along with neighbouring Egypt, controls the enclave’s borders. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has had limited self-rule in the West Bank under 1990s interim peace deals.
The World Court is the top UN court dealing with disputes between states. Its rulings are binding, though it has no power to enforce them.
Israel, which collects tax money on behalf of the PA, would use 139 million shekels ($39 million) from PA funds to compensate victims of Palestinian atacks and would also offset the stipends the PA pays to Palestinians who carried out atacks and their families, said Netanyahu’s office.
The moratorium on Palestinian building, it said, would be for a part of the West Bank called Area C, which is under full Israeli control.
“These decisions are condemned and rejected both in relation to money and other measures they are planning,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Palestinians and many Muslim and non-muslim supporters sharply disagreed with Israel on Thursday at an emergency UN Security Council meeting over the visit of an ultranationalist Israeli cabinet minister to a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site and its impact.
The Palestinians warned it could lead to another deadly uprising, while Israel dismissed it as “a trivial mater” and “non-event.”
The Palestinian UN ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said new Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-gvir, a West Bank setler leader who draws inspiration from a racist rabbi, didn’t go to visit the site, “but to pursue his extremist view, to end the historic status quo” under which Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there since Israel captured the area in the 1967 war.
Known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Al Haram Al Sharif, Arabic for the Noble Sanctuary, the site is the holiest in Judaism, home to the ancient biblical temples. Today, it houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. The site has been the scene of frequent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces.
Calling Ben-gvir “an extremist minister of an extremist state” who was convicted of incitement and is known for his “racist views,” Mansour said the Israeli minister is commited to allowing Jews to pray at Al Haram Al Sharif. He urged the Security Council and all countries to stop this from happening, and “to uphold international law and the historic status quo,” warning that “if they don’t, our Palestinian people will.”
Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who also visited the Temple Mount as minister of public security in 2017, criticised the Security Council for holding the emergency meeting, saying Bengvir’s 13-minute visit was non-violent and within the status quo and his right as a Jew.
Erdan told reporters that calling the meeting “is an insult to our intelligence” and “pathetic,” and that the council should instead be meeting about the war in Ukraine or Iran’s killing of protesters.
“Israel has not harmed the status quo and has no plans to do so,” Erdan said. “The only side that is changing the status quo is the Palestinian Authority. Why? Because by turning the site into a batleground …the Palestinian Authority is making it clear that not only is Jewish prayer intolerable on the Temple Mount, but so is any Jewish presence.”