MADRID/Xinhua
Spain defended this Monday before the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories “do not have legal validity” and are a “serious obstacle” to the creation of a Palestinian State. “Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, have no legal validity, constitute a flagrant violation of international law and a serious obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution,” said the deputy head of the International Legal Counsel of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Emilio Pin.
Pin’s intervention took place at the ICJ hearings (based in The Hague, Netherlands) that are being held following a consultation requested of the court in December 2022 by the United Nations General Assembly on “the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.
A total of 52 States, including China and the United States, and three international organizations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the African Union (AU) and the Arab League, have submitted written comments and oral presentations in the case, which ends today after a week of sessions.
“Both Israel and Palestine are obliged to comply with international legality,” said the Spanish representative, who recalled that according to the court’s jurisprudence “no acquisition of territory carried out under the threat or use of force will be considered legal.”
Pin stressed that “the extensive documentation presented for this advisory procedure demonstrates that 20 years after the court issued its opinion, Israel continues to apply its policies, prolonging the very serious violations of international law detected by the court.”
He also asserted that “the establishment of settlements tends to alter the demographic composition in contravention of the IV Geneva Convention” and that the demolitions of Palestinian homes “prevent the de facto return of Palestinian families and communities to their original accommodations,” in against international humanitarian law.
As he stressed, Israel occupies the West Bank, Gaza and also the Gaza Strip, because although it “withdrew its military and civilian presence” from the latter in 2005, “it has maintained full control of its borders, coastline and airspace.”
Spain, he asserted, is also concerned about “the detention, interrogation, processing and imprisonment” of many Palestinian minors by Israeli forces, in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. After the end of the hearings today, the court will retire to deliberate and must issue its opinion in public hearing.
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