Countries aiding Israel’s occupation may be ‘complicit’: UN experts

Third countries that enable Israel’s “unlawful occupation” of Palestinian territory and assist it despite warnings of war crimes and possible genocide in the Gaza Strip should be considered “complicit”, United Nations experts say.

“Israel’s internationally wrongful acts give rise to state responsibility, not only for Israel, but for all states,” Navi Pillay, the head of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, said on Friday.

The commission has published a new legal position paper spelling out specific actions required after a recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declaring Israel’s occupation since 1967 “unlawful”.

It also examines the implications of last month’s UN General Assembly vote demanding the occupation end within a year.

The three-person commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged international law violations in Israel and the Palestinian territory, pointed first to Israel’s obligations.

The General Assembly vote meant Israel was under an international legal obligation to cease all new settlement activity and dismantle existing settlements as rapidly as possible, the commission noted.

“Israel must immediately put into place a comprehensive plan of action that will physically evacuate all settlers from occupied territory,” it said.

The commission also demanded that Israel “return land, title and natural resources to the Palestinians who have been displaced since 1967”.

All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and inhabited by about 700,000 Israeli settlers, including occupied East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

More than 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements across the West Bank. Their existence remains a major roadblock to since-halted plans outlined in the Oslo Accords that promised the gradual transfer of Israeli-controlled areas to Palestinians.

Both Israeli army and settler violence in the West Bank has surged since Israel’s war in Gaza began. About three million Palestinians in the territory are subjected to Israeli military rule.

Failing to prevent ‘genocide’?

Other countries also have a list of obligations to fulfil, according to the commission.

Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, said all countries are “obligated not to recognise territorial or sovereignty claims made by Israel over the occupied territories”.

States are required to “distinguish in their dealings between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory”, and no country should “recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or place its diplomatic representatives to Israel in Jerusalem”, she said.

States must also refrain from rendering “aid or assistance in maintaining the unlawful occupation”, she said, adding that this included all “financial, military and political aid or support”.

The commission likewise insisted that all states must comply with their “obligations under the Genocide Convention” and follow the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

“The commission finds that all states are on notice that Israel may be or is committing internationally wrongful acts in both its conduct in the military operations in Gaza and its unlawful occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” the position paper said.

“Thus, the commission finds that, unless states cease their aid and assistance to Israel in the commission of these acts, those states shall be deemed to be complicit in those internationally wrongful acts,” it added.

Israel has long accused the independent UN commission of “systematic anti-Israel discrimination”.

The commission has stressed that the UN also needs to do more to ensure Israel complies with its obligations under international law.

It decried the UN Security Council in particular for repeatedly failing to act due to the veto power wielded by one of its five permanent members, implicitly referring to the United States, Israel’s main ally.

“The commission is of the view that, when peremptory norms of international law are violated, the permanent members of the Security Council should not be allowed to exercise their veto as this is contrary to the obligation to uphold peremptory norms of international law,” it said.