Mona Ali Khalil says the U.N. chief has a duty to take further measures to restrain Israel as it escalates and expands its violations of international humanitarian and rights law.
The United Nations flag lowered to half-mast at New York headquarters to honor colleagues killed in Gaza, Nov. 13, 2023. (UN Photo/Evan Schneider)
Update: Israeli police raided a U.N. office in Jerusalem on Monday. It was condemned by the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees who said: “Today in the early morning, Israeli police accompanied by municipal officials forcibly entered the UNRWA compound in East Jerusalem. Police motorcycles, as well as trucks and forklifts, were brought in and all communications were cut. Furniture, IT equipment and other property was seized. The UN flag was pulled down and replaced with an Israeli flag. This latest action represents a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations Member State to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises.”
By Mona Ali Khalil
PassBlue
The United States pushed its resolution on Gaza through the United Nations Security Council on Nov. 17, moving forward on President Donald Trump’s purported peace plan while disregarding Israel’s violations of the ceasefire and despite its rejection of Palestinian statehood, a quintessential element of the U.S. resolution.
Contrary to the pronouncements of the International Court of Justice, successive resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly and even Trump’s Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity, Israel is further entrenching its occupation in Gaza; exponentially expanding its illegal settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; and publicly planning to annex significant parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Who will stop Israel’s defiance of the world court; its contempt for the U.N.; and its apparent disrespect for the U.S., its closest ally and primary benefactor?
On Oct. 25, the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, rendered an advisory opinion requested by the General Assembly nearly a year earlier, on Dec. 19, 2024.
Considering Israel’s escalating attacks on the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the assembly requested the court’s opinion on Israel’s obligations as an occupying power and as a U.N. member state toward the U.N. and UNRWA in and relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, or OPT.
The October 2025 advisory opinion is the third in a series requested by the assembly. The first, issued on July 9, 2004, confirmed the illegality of the wall constructed by Israel in the OPT and called for its immediate dismantlement.
The second, issued on July 19, 2024, confirmed the unlawfulness of Israel’s prolonged occupation, settlements and racial separation practices in the OPT and called for Israel, its forces and its settlers to leave as rapidly as possible.
Israel has not only ignored the three advisory opinions, but it has also escalated and expanded its violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including against the U.N. and UNRWA.
Israel has killed nearly 400 UNRWA staff as well as hundreds of their children; detained and reportedly tortured dozens of UNRWA staff without charge; and destroyed or damaged more than 300 UNRWA schools and other installations.
Israel’s Security Concerns V. International Law
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Michael G. Waltz, center left, with Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon on Nov. 17, ahead of the Security Council meeting on resolution 2803 to “establish an international force to restore order in Gaza, protect civilians and open the way for large-scale aid and rebuilding.” (UN Photo/Loey Felipe)
While the court acknowledged Israel’s security concerns, it cautioned that “the protection of security interests is not a free-standing exception permitting a State to depart from the otherwise applicable rules of international humanitarian law.”
The ICJ reiterated that whether Israel is defending its territory against attack or combating terrorism, the country must abide by international humanitarian law and human rights law.
In addition to its military attacks against UNRWA, which under the Fourth Geneva Convention may constitute war crimes, Israel has also adopted legislation banning UNRWA’s operations in the OPT, confiscating its property and stripping it and its personnel of their U.N. privileges and immunities.
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Israel has also alleged that UNRWA was complicit in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, thereby waging a third form of attack, jeopardizing its financial viability and posing an existential threat to UNRWA’s very existence.
In this connection, the court highlighted the absence of evidence and lack of sufficient information to substantiate these allegations.
It is not lost on the world that these allegations first arose on the eve of the ICJ’s hearing, on Jan. 26, 2024, when the court determined that there was a plausible genocide in Gaza and ordered legally binding provisional measures for Israel to stop the killing, the incitement and the denial of the basic conditions of life “essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population.”
It should also not be lost on the world that UNRWA is facing its existential threat at the same time that the people of Palestine are facing theirs — despite the much-promoted ceasefire agreement, which may have slowed but has not stopped the killing, the devastation or the starvation in Gaza.
Duty of Secretary-General
Secretary-General António Guterres during a high-level ministerial meeting in support of UNRWA at New York headquarters on Sept. 25. (UN Photo/Manuel Elías)
As a matter of procedure, Norway led the initiative leading to the General Assembly’s request for the ICJ’s advisory opinion. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres should have invoked Section 30 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
Israel’s military, legal and other attacks against UNRWA not only violate the privileges and immunities of the agency, its personnel and its premises but also impede its ability to carry out its mandate in the OPT.
Guterres continues to have the right and duty under the convention to bring such serious differences between the U.N. and Israel to the attention of the General Assembly or to the Security Council, which could then request an advisory opinion that would be binding on the parties, in accordance with the convention to which Israel is a party.
As a matter of substance, the ICJ concluded that as a U.N. member state, Israel has an obligation to cooperate with the U.N. in good faith and to support UNRWA’s mandated activities, in accordance with the U.N. Charter.
It also confirmed that UNRWA’s mandate reflects the U.N.’s commitment to, and permanent responsibility for, the question of Palestine and the rights of the Palestinian people.
A displaced child receives a polio vaccination in UNRWA shelter inAl-Shati refugee camp during the 2024–25 Gaza Strip polio epidemic. (UNRWA Photo /Mohammed Hinnawi/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0 igo)
The court also confirmed that Israel has an obligation to cooperate with and to facilitate the U.N. and UNRWA’s efforts in the OPT as well as to respect the privileges and immunities of the U.N. and UNRWA and their personnel, premises, property and other assets.
As an occupying power, Israel also has binding obligations under customary international law even in, and possibly especially in, times of armed conflict:
• to respect, protect and fulfill international human rights in the OPT and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination;
• to ensure the supplies essential to the survival of the civilian population, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel and medical supplies and services;
A young Palestinian man who was injured in his leg during his sixth displacement in Jabalia refugee camp, from which he was forced to flee while wounded. At the time of this photograph, on Feb. 12, his family was enduring its eighth displacement, taking shelter at Khalif Bin Zayed school, where they struggles to live with the harsh winter and the ongoing challenges of displacement. (UNRWA Photo /Hussein Jaber/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)
• to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, subject to a limited right of control;
• to respect and protect personnel participating in relief actions, including to protect the safety and security of U.N. and UNRWA personnel ensuring that they are not targeted.
The court also concluded that Israel has negative obligations — to refrain from impeding humanitarian relief; using “starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare”; and restricting the presence and activities of the U.N. and UNRWA in the OPT to a degree that creates, or contributes to, conditions of life that are intolerable and/or would force the population to leave the OPT.
To the extent that these obligations flow from customary international law, they are also binding on Israel.
As a matter of consequence, the ICJ opined that any diminution by Israel limiting the capacity of UNRWA and other actors to ensure the basic human rights and needs of the Palestinian people “means that the obligations of Israel to respect, protect and fulfill these rights increases to a commensurate degree.”
The court honored UNRWA, describing the agency as “the backbone of all humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, serving Palestinian refugees and civilians in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance.”
To the extent that Israel has not fulfilled its own obligation to ensure that the Palestinian people are adequately supplied, UNRWA has been, according to the court, “an indispensable provider of humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip” and “cannot be replaced on short notice and without a proper transition plan.”
Ultimately, the court reaffirmed the right of the Palestinian people to an independent and sovereign state and reiterated the vision, shared by both the Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as the overwhelming majority of U.N. member states, of two states — Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.
The realization of this shared vision depends on several actors and many factors but none will matter if Israel continues to defy the world court and the United Nations with the active support of the U.S. and the passive complicity of other member states.
Mona Ali Khalil is an internationally recognized public international lawyer with 30 years of U.N. and other experience, including as a former senior legal officer in the U.N. and the IAEA, with expertise in peacekeeping, peace enforcement, disarmament and counterterrorism. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in international relations from Harvard University and a master’s in foreign service and a J.D. from Georgetown University. She is the founder and director of MAK LAW INTERNATIONAL and an affiliate of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict. She has co-authored several publications, including Empowering the UN Security Council: Reforms to Address Modern Threats, the UN Security Council Conflict Management Handbook and Protection of Civilians.
This article is from PassBlue.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Different courts can rule against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and West Bank all they want but the absolute truth is that Israel doesn’t care. They think laws (international, etc.) don’t apply to them. They are special. The only thing that might stop them is the U.S. sending them billions of dollars and war equipment. The other thing that might stop them would be if Iran would bomb them into eternity!
There is no two state solution. The UN cannot be taken seriously until it reverses its 1948 decision to allow the Zionists to violate the rights of the Palestinians by stealing their land through theft and violence. Palestine must be made whole again. Let this be the end of settler colonialist aggression forever.
I could not agree more.
Besides continued mass murder of totally help- and defenseless babies, children, women and men of Palestine by the hundred thousands, there is no crime the zionists/ fascists/ nazis of what is still called ‘israel’ did or would not commit.
Ongoing for a least 8 decades by now.
And the world authorities continue to ask the severely criminals to be nice now.
Expecting to be respected.
Unrealistic!
Israel’s grotesque torture and overall ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners is wholly contrary to international law. I am of Jewish parentage, and I have never been more disgusted with Israel’s behavior. Their cruel, sadistic treatment of prisoners recalls Nazi Germany’s treatment of their ancestors. Ever since Likud grabbed power over a generation ago, following the assassination of the last Labor prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, it has been bent on driving the Palestinian people out of a land they have occupied for thousands of years, a lot more than most of the Israelis have been there. I am especially disgusted at the foul racism they demonstrate in treatment of the Palestinians, who have no army, navy or air force, as Israel does. Israel has become a bully state. Their behavior has been condemned by two international courts, as well as by the UN. Never has Israel totally alienated so much of the world’s population. Barring a reversal of the ongoing genocide, with all it cruelty, Israel will become and remain a rogue state.
The severely criminal zionists, pretending to be of jewish belief, are abusing the jewish religion and its people to hide their extremely evil deeds behind a holy curtain to make themselves look like being the good ones.
The zionists are even killing jewish people as they please, looking at the ‘hannibal directive’ for example.
The UN is an intergovernmental organization that depends on the consensus of the UNSC. The UN has absolutely no power unless it is fully backed by member states and the great powers. The UN does not reflect the current international balance of power, and gives far too much power to the permanent 5 UNSC. The will of the majority of nations in the general assembly has been defied for decades. The example of Cuba also comes to mind.
Even then, any resolution or action must be carried out by the member states. As usual, what good is the law when it is not observed or enforced? The US has historically blocked any action against Israel, and threatened any court or organization that gets in the way of US policy.
Sadly, even when the UNSC is unanimous and produces a resolution (see UN Res. 242, for example) it may well just be ignored. Since 1967, the opposite has happened: Israel has not withdrawn, it has expanded occupation, expanded war crimes, and expanded the genocidal policies in both Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. (Not to mention the countless crimes against other countries)
Israel is a proxy state, or garrison state, fully supported by the US empire and EU vassals. Israel could not defy anyone unless it had the backing of the west. All of the crimes of Israel are crimes of the US and vassals. Let’s be brutally honest: no one will be held to account in the US, UK, Israel or EU vassal states. However, all great powers rise and fall: the US empire is slowly but surely falling. It will likely be years to come, but it is inevitable that Israel’s days are numbered, and US global hegemony is vanishing.
My question is: will the new great powers like Russia, China, India take a significant stand against Israel in the nearer term? (Of course, Russian and China are UNSC 5 members). Would any great power be willing to use force to stop Israel/US/UK?
One country in the world, which from the start had not fulfilled the basic requirements for membership of the United Nations was accepted and allowed to violate every rule . No punishment has been handed to it and the USA has vetoed any possibility of Israel obeying rules which all have agreed to abide by.
Why is this alleged Nation allowed to continue??
People who revel in war go to great lengths to keep wars alive, despite its being the worst of all possible pursuits. Maya Angelou was right: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them. The first time.” We see no evidence of any willingness to change on the part of the military obsessed powers who have so very much invested in killing and destroying human life and blowing up everything in sight. Wake me when we have people in positions of power who are abandoning the making of war and are bending efforts toward actually taking care of people and forging weapons into plowshares. Otherwise ignore the continual work of nations to plant crops and then who actively work to guarantee crop failure.