In December 2024 the UN General Assembly, by majority vote of 137 to 12, with 22 abstaining, once again requested an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This Advisory Opinion primarily concerns the consequences arising from Israel’s unlawful conduct in preventing the United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from fulfilling its mandate across unlawfully occupied Palestine.

The request for the Advisory Opinion closely follows the ICJ’s unequivocal affirmation in its Advisory Opinion of July 2024, on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem that Israel has no entitlement to sovereignty or to sovereign powers in any part of the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that Israel’s presence in the territory is unlawful and must end as rapidly as possible. The request further follows on the issuance by the ICJ of binding provisional measures ordered in the case brought by South Africa against Israel under the Genocide Convention to prevent ongoing and further irreparable harm to the Palestinian population.

Israel has, without consequence, ignored the three binding Orders of the ICJ, and clearly indicated - through its rhetoric and conduct - that it will not end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory. This is despite the UN General Assembly, by resolution ES-10/24, emphasising the imperative of ensuring accountability for all violations of international law in order to end impunity, ensure justice, deter future violations, protect civilians and promote peace, and demanded that Israel comply without delay with all its legal obligations under international law, including as stipulated by the ICJ.

As the deadline for submission of written interventions to the ICJ in advance of its deliberations approaches, Al-Haq calls upon all states and relevant international organizations to intervene in the pending Advisory Opinion proceedings. Developing legal submissions to the Court in support of Palestinian rights under international law not only vindicates their fundamental rights as affirmed by the ICJ and UN General Assembly, but acts as a bulwark for an international legal system which is increasingly subject to sustained attack, as witnessed for example in the threats by certain states parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to refuse to fulfil their obligations under the Rome Statute to enforce the arrest warrants on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges that have been issued against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A critical mass of legal interventions to the ICJ, affirming Palestinian rights, and the legitimacy and urgency of enforcing international legal obligations is essential. With respect to the written submissions Al-Haq request that interveners emphasise the following points.

1. The question referred by the General Assembly to the ICJ centres on Israel’s obligations ‘as an occupying Power and as a member of the United Nations, in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, including its agencies and bodies, other international organizations and third States, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory’. In transmitting the request to the ICJ the UN Secretary-General noted that the UN Secretariat would prepare “a dossier containing a collection of all documents that are likely to throw light upon this question”. Al-Haq notes that the dossier as was submitted to the ICJ is inappropriately incomplete, as it is temporally limited to documents subsequent to the onset of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem in 1967. The primary impetus for the request, as emphasised by the main sponsor Norway, has been Israel’s attacks specifically on UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The documents contained in the UN Secretariat dossier should have included a collection of documents for States to assess for their written observations from 1948 to present –– failure to do so risks a narrow framing of the Palestinian refugee question which unnecessarily fragments the Palestinian group.
2. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 1948 established the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) to pursue an overall settlement of the various issues underpinning the Palestinian question, including the return of Palestinians to their homeland and compensation from Israel. UNRWA, a United Nations agency, was established by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949. It is mandated to “carry out . . . direct relief and works programmes” for Palestine refugees, and currently supports a population of some six million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. As a result of the mass expulsion of Palestinians during the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948,  and their continued mass displacement since Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967,  the Agency’s mandate has evolved over the years to extend to the provision of emergency services to persons in its area of operations who are currently displaced and in serious need of continued assistance. The international community committed to deal with the question of Palestine refugees until “definitively settled in accordance with the relevant resolutions adopted by the General Assembly”, as reflected in Article 1D of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and Article 7 (c) of the Statute of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which recognises a distribution of responsibilities among various UN agencies –– primarily UNCCP and UNRWA, and then the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
3. The UN Secretariat’s rationale for limiting documents in the dossier submitted to the ICJ to post-1967 is premised on “the fact that the General Assembly’s question concerns the Occupied Palestinian Territory […] and of the time constraints associated with the General Assembly’s request for an advisory opinion ‘on a priority basis and with the utmost urgency’, Part II retains the structure of and documents contained in the dossier provided by the Secretariat to the Court in connection with the General Assembly’s request in resolution 77/247 of 30 December 2022 for an advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, delivered by the Court on 19 July 2024”.
4. In order for the ICJ to comprehensively understand the nature and function of UNRWA, and particularly the nexus between the scope of the Palestinian right to self-determination, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and the specific question presented by the General Assembly, it is imperative that full and rigorous attention be accorded to the entire history of UNRWA, the need for its establishment, and Israel’s continued denial of the Palestinian right of return. In the wake of the tentative ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have violently attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, with a clear and direct emphasis on targeting and attacking Palestinian refugee camps. Already during 2025 Israeli forces have unlawfully forcibly transferred some 40,000 Palestinian residents of three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, with Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz claiming that the camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams would be occupied by the Israeli military for the coming year.
5. While the question posed to the ICJ by the General Assembly refers to Israel’s obligations as an Occupying Power, it is framed in the context of Israel’s responsibilities also as a UN member, conditionally admitted to that organisation in 1949, and in terms of the Palestinian right to self-determination. Attacks on UNRWA and the refugee camps in which it administers crucial services must be seen as a wider attack on the global refugee regime and the broader international humanitarian system. Under international law, the right to leave and subsequently return to one’s country is an inherent element of the freedom of movement. Palestinians forcibly displaced by the Nakba of 1948, the Naksa of 1967, and by Israel’s ongoing settler-colonial, apartheid regime, have an inalienable right of return. This includes the protection of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, denied their right of return since 1948 to their homes in present day Israel, as it does Palestinians in the diaspora who are systematically denied their right of return, under Israel’s quasi constitutional Basic Law.
6. This right of return was recently reaffirmed by the ICJ in July 2024, which held that Israel is obliged to allow “all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence” (para 270). Given the question posed to the Court was temporally limited to the occupation since 1967, this finding in no way limits the right of return of Palestinians made refugees prior to 1967 or implies that this is the case. The scope of the present question referred to the ICJ requires a review of Israel’s obligations beyond and in addition to its responsibilities as an unlawful Occupying Power. Notably, and distinct from the Advisory Opinion of July 2024 which determined that the question posed by the General Assembly covered Israel’s conduct “only to the extent that they apply in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” since 1967, (paras 27 and 182), the present question demands consideration by the ICJ of Israel’s obligations:

“as an occupying Power and as a member of the United Nations, in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, including its agencies and bodies, other international organizations and third States, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory […] and in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination’

Such wording clearly indicates a broader, more comprehensive analysis and approach is required than was taken in previous Advisory Opinions which were focused on Israel’s obligations vis-á-vis the territory occupied since 1967, and necessarily concerns, at a minimum, UNRWA and the broader role of the UN in facilitating and ensuring the enforcement of the Palestinian right of return prior to 1967. For the UN Secretariat to have mistakenly prejudged that the ICJ would not require a review of all documentation, facts, and legal obligations arising since at least the establishment of UNRWA in 1949, insofar as they impact the human rights of Palestinians, including refugees and their descendants, as well as the scope of the Palestinian right to self-determination and Israel’s legal obligations, suggests a grave impediment upon the ability of the ICJ to effectively fulfil its mandate.

Al-Haq considers it imperative that states and relevant international organisations, when making interventions to the ICJ, directly address this arbitrary and dangerous temporal limitation, which inherently contributes to the erasure of Palestinian rights and experience, undermines the full role, function, and mandate of UNRWA, and excludes the crucially relevant, formative period of the historical development of the Zionist settler-colonial project, which is rapidly expanding in terms of both its imperialist ambitions and forms of violence against Palestine and its refugee population.