ICJ rules Israel ‘has not substantiated’ allegations of Unwra Hamas ‘infiltration’

The court did recognise that nine members of Unrwa staff suspected of participating in the October 7 attacks were sacked last year following a UN investigation, but concluded that fact was “insufficient to support a conclusion that Unrwa as a whole is not a neutral organisation".

“In addition, the court finds that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant number of Unraw employees are members of Hamas or other terrorist factions,” added Iwasawa.

Moreover, the court found that “Israel itself has not ensured that the population of the Gaza Strip is adequately supplied” with humanitarian aid.

Since the start of the war, Israel has significantly varied the amount of aid allowed into the Strip, even cutting it off entirely for 11 weeks before ending its blockade in May, pointing to the looting of aid by Hamas and other factions.

The court added that “in the circumstances... Israel is under an obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities, including Unrwa,” which has been banned from operating in Israel since last year.

It also found that the unilateral ban of Unrwa’s operations in East Jerusalem amounted to Israel “exercising sovereignty” in the territory, to which it is “not entitled” as an “occupying power”.

And it ruled that the obligation to cooperate with such relief schemes “is not dependent on the local population being inadequately supplied and, therefore, extends beyond the Gaza Strip to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

The advisory opinion is not legally binding, and Iwasawa emphasised that the court did not consider whether Israel violated its humanitarian obligations.

However, the court is understood to believe that the decision carries "great legal weight and moral authority".

The ruling comes after a series of hearings on the topic was held in April, but Israeli officials did not attend, with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar calling them "part of a systematic persecution and delegitimisation" effort.

Likewise, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said: “They are blaming Israel for not cooperating with UN organs… They should be blaming themselves.

"Those organs became breeding grounds for terrorists. Take, for example, Unrwa… an organisation that supported Hamas for years

Responding to the decision, Jonathan Turner of UK Lawyers for Israel said: “In theory, it is not binding - it is more like a legal opinion given to a client based on information provided by the client, in this case the UN.

“Its accuracy is no stronger that the accuracy of the information provided by the client. Nevertheless, enemies of Israel will find quite a lot to exploit in it.

The Opinion states clearly that the Court was only considering Israel’s legal obligations and not whether they were breached. Nevertheless, in doing so, the Court made critical statements as to facts, mainly based on UN documents, that are disputed by Israel, and, in my view, probably wrong.

“In 2005 the masterful Judgment of then Chief Justice Aharon Barak in Israel’s Supreme Court in the Alfei Menashe case exposed the unreliability of UN documents regarding Israel and the inadequacy of the ICJ’s procedures for assessing their accuracy, particularly in Advisory Opinion cases. It should be required reading for all ICJ judges as well as other public officials and commentators. Regrettably, it has been ignored.

“The Court’s Vice President, Julia Sebutinde, dissented from most of the majority’s conclusions, but her opinion, as well as separate opinions and declarations of several of the other judges have not yet been published.”