Afghan Voice Agency (AVA): The International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, has started hearing the Israeli regime's case regarding the 57-year occupation of the Palestinian territories.

 

According to the Associated Press, the scheduled hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for six days began last Monday with the presence of 15 judges and the representatives of many countries participated in it.

 

This court is established at the request of the United Nations; A request that was approved on the last day of 2022 in the framework of a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly with 87 votes in favor. The Zionist regime of the United States and 24 other members of the UN General Assembly voted against this resolution, and 53 countries, including France, refused to vote for it.

 

This resolution asks the Hague Court to "in addition to the issue of continuous occupation and the transformation of the demographic composition, to examine the status of Jerusalem and the laws and actions that the Zionist regime took in these lands after 1967."

 

The UN resolution also asks the International Court of Justice to comment on the effects of the policies and actions of the Zionist regime "on the legal status of the occupation" and the resulting legal consequences for all countries and the United Nations.

 

According to the Palestinian legal team present at the hearings, the Israeli regime's "occupation is illegal" because it violates three key principles of international law. They say that by annexing large parts of the Palestinian territories, the Zionist regime has violated the ban on occupying the territories, violated the Palestinians' right to self-determination, and imposed a system based on "racial discrimination and apartheid" on them.

 

According to the Independent, Omar Awadullah, Director of the United Nations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Palestinian Authority, said, "We now want them [the court] to deal with apartheid," referring to the court's previous ruling that dealt with "genocide."

 

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice, during the hearing of South Africa's complaint case, required the Zionist regime to use all its power to "prevent genocide" in the war with Hamas in Gaza.

 

According to peace observers, the Zionist regime has settled more than 500,000 Jewish settlers in this area by building 146 settlements in the West Bank, and the population of West Bank settlers has increased by more than 15% in the past five years alone.

 

The international community considers the settlements of the Zionist regime illegal.