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The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the ground-breaking decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declaring the continued occupation of Palestine as a violation of international law. The ICJ resoundingly denounced the Israeli settler state’s Palestine colonisation and occupation manoeuvres and declared that its continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful.

“We call on the United Nations to take immediate practical decisive measures to reverse the apartheid Israeli settler state occupation of Palestine, hold its leaders to account and stop its ongoing genocide on Palestinian people”, said SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila from Johannesburg on Saturday, 20 July 2024.

The ICJ’s ground-breaking declaration came at the time when the United States-backed apartheid Israeli settler state has unabatedly intensified its occupation of Palestine, genocide on the Palestinian people, violation of the human rights of Palestinian people and expansion of its aggression against other states in the Middle East, unleashing destruction and terror, violating the progressive thrust of international law.

“The SACP condemns these and other atrocious acts by the apartheid Israeli settler state in the strongest terms possible”, said the Mapaila.  

Delivering its verdict on Friday, 19 July 2024, at The Hague, the World Court, as the ICJ is sometimes called, stated unambiguously that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, were established and are being maintained in violation of international law.

The ICJ’s advisory opinion was premised on the United Nations General Assembly’s 30 December 2022 Resolution 77/247 requesting the ICJ to decide “On the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.

The ICJ further stated that Israel’s illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. In these territories, the ICJ pronounced further, Israel has imposed policies and practices to fragment and frustrate the ability of the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination, and over large swathes has unjustifiably extended Israeli sovereignty in violation of international law. 

Accordingly, the ICJ declared that Israel is under an obligation to end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, cease immediately all new settlement activities, and evacuate all Israeli settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Having declared as illegal the Israeli regime’s occupation of, and operations in Palestine, the ICJ further called upon the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council to consider the modalities and further action required to halt, as rapidly as possible, the unlawful presence of the Israeli settler state in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

This ICJ’s advisory opinion follows its 26 January 2024 decision, duly welcomed and applauded by the peace-loving people of the world, that there was plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in violation of the Genocide Convention. That ruling followed the genocide case brought by South Africa against the apartheid Israeli state. At that time, the genocidal apartheid Israeli regime’s machinery had murdered over 26,000 people in Gaza since 7 October 2023, about one per cent of the population. Thus far, the apartheid Israeli settler state has killed over 38,919 Palestinians in Gaza, with 89,622 more wounded. The merciless Israeli apartheid regime has further killed about 600 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October 2023. Considering those unaccounted and missing, the number of Palestinians that the apartheid Israeli settler state has killed in committing the genocide is considered to be greater than the approximated 40,000.  

In addition, in the West Bank, the apartheid Israeli settler repressive state and genocide machinery has left at least 5,350 Palestinians injured, including those it has paralysed, and has detained over 9,655, subjecting many of them to gross abuse, severe beatings, threats against their families, phycological harm and trauma. The apartheid Israeli settler state has destroyed Palestinian homes and essential social and economic infrastructure networks, including hospitals, clinics, other healthcare centres, and schools, higher learning institutions, places of worship and more. 

The SACP calls for continued working-class unity and activism across the globe as well as practical action from all justice and peace-loving people to pile more pressure on apartheid Israel and support the Boycott, Divest and Sanctionscampaign. This campaign should be intensified to boycott all Israeli produced goods and services and to sever international trade and investment ties with the apartheid settler state. 

As the SACP, we will continue to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their fight against the occupation of their land, as well as defend and support their rights to national sovereignty and self-determination.

Issued by the South African Communist Party,