Israel on Monday boycotted a hearing at the United Nations\u2019 top court on its decision to ban a UN aid agency that has served millions of Palestinians since it was established in 1949. <\/p>\n
The hearings will look at Israel\u2019s obligations, both as a member of the United Nations and as an occupying power, toward the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The aid agency provides education, healthcare and social services to nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. <\/p>\n
The hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which began in The Hague <\/strong>on Monday following a request by the UN General Assembly, are scheduled to last all week, with 40 countries, including the United States, set to speak as part of the proceedings. The ICJ will issue an advisory opinion about Israel\u2019s obligations at a later stage, after the hearings conclude. <\/p>\n The court\u2019s advisory opinions have no binding force, but they carry tremendous significance. They are \u201coften an instrument of preventive diplomacy and help to keep the peace,\u201d according to the court. They also help interpret and shape international law. <\/p>\n Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar called it \u201canother shameful proceeding\u201d designed to delegitimize his country. Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem in lieu of the hearing on Monday, Sa\u2019ar accused UNRWA of being \u201can organization that is infested with Hamas terrorists.\u201d He said Israel had submitted its written position but would not take part in \u201cthis circus.\u201d <\/p>\n UNRWA has repeatedly denied these accusations in the past, saying there is \u201cabsolutely no ground for a blanket description of \u2018the institution as a whole\u2019 being \u2018totally infiltrated.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n At the opening of the hearings on Monday, the UN\u2019s legal counsel said Israel had a clear obligation as an occupying force to allow and facilitate humanitarian aid for Gazans. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the specific context of the current situation in the occupied Palestinian Territories, these obligations entail allowing all relevant UN entities to carry out activities for the benefit of the local population,\u201d Elinor Hammarskj\u00f6ld said. <\/p>\n Ammar Hijazi, the Palestinian representative at the hearing, said \u201cthere can be no doubt about the court\u2019s jurisdiction in these proceedings,\u201d pointing to two previous ICJ cases involving Israel. <\/p>\n In January 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel must take \u201call measures\u201d to prevent a genocide in Gaza. Then in June, it said in an advisory opinion that Israel\u2019s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is illegal. <\/p>\n \u201cIsrael is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians, while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives,\u201d Hijazi said. <\/p>\n Amir Weissbord, an official with Israel\u2019s foreign ministry, claimed on Monday that \u201c1,462 UNRWA workers in Gaza are confirmed terrorists,\u201d which he said was based on intelligence. Israel has not provided evidence to support the accusation of such a high number. Weissbord said the number would be even higher once Israel began looking into UNRWA\u2019s female employees. <\/p>\n After the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, Israel alleged that 12 of UNRWA\u2019s 14,000 staffers in Gaza were involved in the assault. A subsequent UN investigation found that nine employees \u201cmay have\u201d been involved in the attack. UNRWA said at the time that their contracts had been terminated. <\/p>\n In October, Israel\u2019s parliament passed a law banning UNRWA from activity within Israel and revoking the 1967 treaty that allowed the agency to carry out its mission. The ban was expected to severely restrict UNRWA\u2019s ability to operate in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. <\/p>\n UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said at the time that the move violated international law and was \u201cthe latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role toward providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine refugees.\u201d <\/p>\n In early April, Israel raided six UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem, ordering them to close within 30 days. Lazzarini promised that the agency would not be cowed by Israel\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n \u201cUNRWA is committed to stay & deliver education and other basic services to Palestine Refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in accordance with the General Assembly resolution mandated to the Agency,\u201d he said on social media. <\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been pushing to dismantle UNRWA well before the October 7 attacks, arguing that the agency perpetuates the Palestinian \u201crefugee problem.\u201d UNRWA\u2019s definition of Palestinian refugees includes the descendants of those Palestinians who were forced out of their homes during Israel\u2019s creation in 1948. Israeli officials have rejected that definition, arguing that descendants don\u2019t qualify as refugees and thus don\u2019t have the right to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israel on Monday boycotted a hearing at the United Nations\u2019 top court on its decision to ban a UN aid agency that has served millions of Palestinians since it was established in 1949. The hearings will look at Israel\u2019s obligations, both as a member of the United Nations and as an occupying power, toward the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} \u2018Campaign to discredit UNRWA\u2019<\/h2>\n