International
Palestinians urge world to end Israel’s illegal occupation after ICJ ruling
![](https://newstrends.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/A-protester-draped-in-a-Palestinian-flag-holds-up-a-sign-in-solidarity-with-Gaza-outside-the-International-Court-of-Justice-in-The-Hague.jpg)
Palestinians urge world to end Israel’s illegal occupation after ICJ ruling
Activists and legal experts in the West Bank say Friday’s ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has found that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is unlawful, will do little to improve life for Palestinians.
Other states must now apply collective pressure on Israel to end its rule over Gaza and the West Bank, including annexed East Jerusalem, if the situation there is to change, they say.
The world’s highest court concluded on Friday – with 12-3 judges in favour – that Israel is forcibly displacing Palestinians from their lands, exploiting water sources, annexing large swaths of the occupied territory “by force” and is violating the right of Palestinians to “self-determination”.
The ICJ also ruled that Israel must stop all building of settlements in the West Bank and should compensate Palestinians for human rights violations in the occupied territory.
The ruling is a non-binding advisory opinion, which was sought by the United Nations General Assembly in 2022, seeking to clarify the legal implications of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
The ICJ called on the UN – especially the Security Council and General Assembly – to take action to bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to a “rapid” end.
However, Zainah el-Haroun, the spokesperson for Al-Haq, a Palestinian nonprofit organisation based in the West Bank that monitors human rights violations, said previous ICJ rulings have not led to global action against Israel.
She referenced the ICJ’s 2004 advisory opinion that found Israel’s separation wall and settlements on occupied Palestinian land illegal. Settlements have not only remained in the West Bank since the ruling, but the number of Israeli settlers living there has also risen from 250,000 in 1993 to more than 700,000 in 2023.
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“These rulings mean nothing if third states and the international community fail to hold Israel accountable,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The ICJ has ruled that Israel’s occupation is unlawful and must end immediately. Third states must ensure the full and total realisation of the Palestinian people to self-determination and sanction Israel’s illegal occupation, which breaches international law,” she added.
Little to celebrate
Palestinian activists in the West Bank said they cannot celebrate the ICJ’s ruling when the situation across the occupied territory is worse than ever before.
They cited Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed at least 38,848 Palestinians – the vast majority of them civilians – and has rendered the enclave uninhabitable. Gaza is also witnessing an outbreak of diseases such as polio and cholera while nearly the entire population is struggling to survive food shortages brought on by Israel’s siege of the enclave.
Israel’s war on Gaza followed Hamas-led attacks on military outposts and communities in southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and 251 taken captive.
The global attention – and shock – over Israel’s war ever since has distracted attention from its settlement expansion in the West Bank, observers said.
“A year ago, a ruling like this would have been great. We all would have thought this was a great step forward,” said Tasame Ramadan, a human rights activist from the West Bank city of Nablus. “But right now, the priority is a permanent ceasefire [in Gaza] and an end to the occupation.”
Mohamad Alwan, a Palestinian rights activist monitoring settler attacks in the West Bank, expressed a similar wariness about what the ruling will mean on the ground.
He said that while he recognises the ruling hurts Israel’s image abroad, there is no way for the court to apply or enforce it.
In addition, Alwan said he is pessimistic about whether states will take action against Israel after the ruling. He cited perceived indifference to the ICJ’s binding order in January, in which the court called on Israel to scale up aid and prevent further harm to civilians in Gaza after concluding that “the rights of Palestinians were at risk” under the Genocide Convention.
“In my opinion, this decision will have no immediate impact on the situation on the ground,” he told Al Jazeera.
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“However, in the long run, there might be an impact. The world has seen now how Israel kills people and kills children, and their views are changing about Israel and its occupation.”
‘Nakba is where it all started’
Palestinian activists stressed that the ICJ’s advisory ruling on Friday must be understood in the context of the Nakba, or “Catastrophe”, of 1948 when Zionist militias expelled about 750,000 Palestinians from their lands to create the state of Israel.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian legal expert, said she wished the ICJ had referenced the Nakba to highlight the historic pattern of Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territory.
“While I’m happy about the outcome of this case, I also think that this focus just on the West Bank and Gaza ignores the bigger picture of the origins of this situation and the ways in which Israel was created, which was through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” Buttu told Al Jazeera.
She criticised the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs large swaths of the West Bank and represents the Palestinian people internationally, for how the issue of Israel-Palestine is typically framed by and within the global community.
She accused the PA of having long given up advocating for stateless Palestinians to be able to exercise the right of return to their former homes and lands lost during the Nakba or calling for an end to the discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face.
Experts and activists have previously attributed the PA’s shortcomings to the Oslo Accords, the first of which was signed in 1993 by then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the lawn of the White House.
“The PA a long time ago took a position that it is all about the two-state solution and ending occupation, so their entire discourse has just been about that,” Buttu said.
Ramadan agreed on the importance of centring the Nakba whenever speaking about Israel’s settlements expansion and its war in Gaza.
“The Nakba is where this all started. How can we not mention the cause of the issue and where this all started? This is not the right way to address an issue like this,” she said.
“We would definitely like to see the international community recognise the Nakba, recognise all the people we lost in 1948 and to recognise the consequences of the Nakba that we are still living through today.”
Palestinians urge world to end Israel’s illegal occupation after ICJ ruling
International
UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign in Gaza
![](https://newstrends.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Displaced-Palestinian-children-gather-to-receive-food-at-a-government-school-in-Rafah-in-the-southern-Gaza-Strip-on-February-.jpg)
UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS: The UN independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, an allegation that Israel vehemently denies.
In a report this week, investigator Michael Fakhri claimed it began two days after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, when Israel’s military offensive in response blocked all food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said accusations of Israel limiting humanitarian aid were “outrageously false.”
“A deliberate starvation policy? You can say anything — it doesn’t make it true,” he said in a press conference Wednesday.
Following intense international pressure — especially from close ally the United States — Netanyahu’s government gradually has opened several border crossings for tightly controlled deliveries. Fakhri said limited aid initially went mostly to southern and central Gaza, not to the north where Israel had ordered Palestinians to go.
A professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, Fakhri was appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council as the investigator, or special rapporteur, on the right to food and assumed the role in 2020.
“By December, Palestinians in Gaza made up 80 percent of the people in the world experiencing famine or catastrophic hunger,” Fakhri said. “Never in post-war history had a population been made to go hungry so quickly and so completely as was the case for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”
Fakhri, who teaches law courses on human rights, food law and development, made the allegations in a report to the UN General Assembly circulated Thursday.
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He claims it goes back 76 years to Israeli’s independence and its continuous dislocation of Palestinians. Since then, he accused Israel of deploying “the full range of techniques of hunger and starvation against the Palestinians, perfecting the degree of control, suffering and death that it can cause through food systems.”
Since the war in Gaza began, Fakhri said he has received direct reports of the destruction of the territory’s food system, including farmland and fishing, which also has been documented and recognized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and others.
“Israel then used humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon to harm and kill the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he claimed.
Israel insists it no longer places restrictions on the number of aid trucks entering Gaza, including food.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Netanyahu cited figures from COGAT, Israel’s military body overseeing aid entry into Gaza, that 700,000 tons of food items had been allowed into Gaza since the war began 11 months ago.
Nearly half of that food aid in recent months has been brought in by the private sector for sale in Gaza’s markets, according to COGAT figures. However, many Palestinians in Gaza say they struggle to afford enough food for their families.
Israel allows trucks of aid through two small crossings in the north and one main crossing in the south, Kerem Shalom. However, since Israel’s invasion of the southern city of Rafah in May, the UN and other aid agencies say they struggle to reach the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom to retrieve the aid for free distribution because Israel’s military operations make it too dangerous.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “beyond catastrophic,” with more than 1 million Palestinians not receiving any food rations in August and a 35 percent drop in people getting daily cooked meals.
The UN humanitarian office attributed the sharp reduction in cooked meals partly to multiple evacuation orders from Israeli security forces that forced at least 70 of 130 kitchens to either suspend or relocate their operations, he said Thursday. The UN’s humanitarian partners also lacked sufficient food supplies to meet requirements for the second straight month in central and southern Gaza, Dujarric added.
He said critical shortages of supplies in Gaza are stem from hostilities, insecurity, damaged roads, and Israeli obstacles and access limitations.
UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign in Gaza
ARAB NEWS
International
Protesters rally in France against new PM appointment
![](https://newstrends.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Protesters-rally-in-France-against-new-PM-appointment.jpg)
Protesters rally in France against new PM appointment
Protests are taking place across France over the nomination of right-wing Michel Barnier as the new prime minister, after an inconclusive election in which the left won the largest number of seats.
More than 100 protests are expected to take place on Saturday, with people already on the streets in cities including Bordeaux, Nice and Le Mans.
The demonstrations were called by trade unions and left-wing political parties, whose own candidate for prime minister was rejected by President Emmanuel Macron.
Mr Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, said he is open to forming a government with politicians across the political spectrum, including the left.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran firebrand from the radical France Unbowed party, called for the “most powerful mobilisation possible” in national marches.
Around 130 protests are being held, with the biggest setting out from central Paris this afternoon. Other cities staging protests include Marseille and Lyon.
The demonstrators are using slogans such as “denial of democracy” and “stolen election”.
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Parties on the left are angry that their own candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets, was rejected by Mr Macron, who said she had no chance of surviving a vote of confidence in the National Assembly.
Mr Barnier may be able to survive a confidence vote because the far right, which also won a large number of seats, has said it won’t automatically vote against him.
However, that has led to criticism that his government will be dependent on the far right.
Ms Castets said she – like millions of French voters – felt betrayed and that the president had in effect ended up governing with the far right.
“We have a prime minister completely dependent on National Rally,” she added.
Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the protests, Mr Barnier is focussed on forming a new government.
After talks with the leaders of the right-wing Republicans and the president’s centrist Ensemble group, he said discussions were going very well and were “full of energy”.
Some on the left have blamed themselves for ending up with Mr Barnier as prime minister.
Socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo pointed out that the president had considered former Socialist prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, for the job but that he had been turned down by his own party.
Another Socialist Mayor, Karim Bouamrane, blamed intransigence from other parts of the left alliance: “The path they chose was 100% or nothing – and here we are with nothing.”
Protesters rally in France against new PM appointment
BBC
International
Man who attacked judge in court pleads ‘guilty but mentally ill’
![](https://newstrends.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Deobra-Redden.jpg)
Man who attacked judge in court pleads ‘guilty but mentally ill’
Deobra Redden, the man caught on video attacking a judge during an attempted battery conviction, has pled guilty with a significant caveat—he has been declared “guilty but mentally ill.”
In a statement released on Friday, September 6, by Redden’s lawyers at CEGA Law Group, they emphasized that their client acknowledges the severity of his actions and is seeking mental health treatment as part of his sentencing. The legal team is pushing for mental health reform and hopes Redden’s case will help spotlight the need for improvements in the system.
The attorneys expressed sympathy for Judge Mary Kay Holthus, the judge who was attacked, and thanked the Clark County District Attorney’s Office for working towards a resolution.
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The shocking courtroom incident, which was caught on video, shows Redden leaping over the judge’s bench as Judge Holthus was delivering his sentence for an earlier conviction. Holthus had made a comment about Redden “getting a taste of something else” before he ran towards her. Despite the chaos, the judge only sustained minor injuries after hitting her head.
Redden was quickly restrained and appeared in court days later, wearing a facemask and hand covers, where he was sentenced to 19-48 months behind bars for the attempted battery conviction.
Redden’s sentencing for the judge attack is set for November 7. His legal team is advocating for mental health treatment to be central to his punishment.
Man who attacked judge in court pleads ‘guilty but mentally ill’
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