The International Court of Justice has confirmed it officially received a request from the United Nations General Assembly to give an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The ICJ is expected to draw up a list of states and organisations that will be able to file written statements, but the statement gave no further information about a timeline for that process.
In previous advisory opinions, the court also scheduled hearings but it is likely to take at least several months before they can be scheduled.
The Hague-based ICJ, also known as the World Court, is the top UN court dealing with disputes between states. Its rulings are binding, although the ICJ has no power to enforce them.
In a move condemned by Israel and welcomed by Palestinians, the General Assembly asked the ICJ last month to give an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's "occupation, settlement and annexation ... including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures".
The UN resolution also asks the ICJ to advise on how those policies and practices "affect the legal status of the occupation" and what legal consequences arise for all countries and the United Nations from this status.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the request for a World Court opinion a "despicable decision".
Israeli envoy to the UN Gilad Erdan called the UN resolution "poisonous and destructive", and said Palestinians behind the resolution "stabbed a knife in the heart" of any chance at dialogue.
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Palestinian protesters wave flags as Israeli troops take position during a protest against Jewish settlements in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. Reuters -
Now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has secured a new term in office, there’s little to prevent him from annexing large parts of the West Bank as early as this summer. AP -
An Israeli soldier stands guard during a tour made by Israeli parliament members in the Jordan Valley near the Jewish settlement of Maale Efrayim. Reuters -
Israeli soldiers take position as Palestinian demonstrators gather during a protest against expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. AP -
King Abdullah (r) of Transjordan on May 13, 1948 in Amman with Abed Al Rahman Azzam, the secretary general of the Arab League and Abd Al Elah Ibn Ali, the Prince Regent of Iraq, the day before the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli War. AFP -
Palestinians surrender to Israeli soldiers in June 1967 in the occupied territory of the West Bank after Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt and Syria and seized the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in Syria as well as the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. AFP -
A Palestinian child plays in a refugee camp in Jordan on June 23, 1967. AFP -
PLO chairman Yasser Arafat delivers a speech to the Palestine National Council meeting to make the historic proclamation of a Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied territories and to recognize Israel in the Palace of Nations conference hall on November 12, 1988, in Algiers. AFP -
US President Bill Clinton stands between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzahk Rabin as they shake hands for the first time on September 13, 1993 at the White House. AFP -
Hussein Ibn Talal, King of Jordan and Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin shake hands after they exchanged the documents of the Peace Treaty at Beit Gabriel conference centre on November 10, 1994 on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. AFP -
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the Palestinian leadership meeting and threatened to end security coordination with Israel and the United States, saying Israeli annexation would ruin chances for peace. AFP -
Houses in the Israeli settlement of settlement of Kedumim are seen in the foreground as part of the Palestinian city of Nablus is seen in the background (far left) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Reuters -
Israel's controversial concrete barrier (C) separating the Jewish settlement of Neve Yaakov (foreground) in the northern part of east Jerusalem and the Palestinian area of al-Ram (background) in the occupied West Bank. AFP -
An Israeli activist holds a banner during a protest against the US peace plan for the Middle East, in front of the US ambassador's residence in Jerusalem, on May 15, 2020, as Palestinians commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the 1948 Nakba or "catastrophe". AFP -
A Palestinian shepherd tends to his camels on arid land considered to be in "Area C" (under Israeli security and administrative control), southeast of Yatta town in the southern West Bank district of Hebron. AFP -
A general view of the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh, as seen from the Palestinian village of Azmout near the West Bank City of Nablus. EPA -
The West Bank Jewish settlement of Maale Michmash. AP
Mr Erdan dismissed UN figures, saying that 2022 as the deadliest year in the West Bank since the Second Intifada uprising from 2000 to 2005.
He said his Palestinian counterpart Riyad Mansour had put on "an Academy Award-winning act of false victimisation".
Mr Mansour said Israeli envoys "live in a parallel dimension where the entire world is wrong and they are right".
"Peace is still possible, less probable every single day, but still possible," he added, calling on the Security Council to act.
The ICJ last weighed in on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in 2004, when it ruled that an Israeli separation barrier was illegal.
In the same ruling, the ICJ judges said that Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory "have been established in breach of international law".
Israel rejected that ruling, accusing the court of being politically motivated.
The news came as the UN’s Middle East Peace Envoy Tor Wennesland told the Security Council that “inflammatory rhetoric” was putting Israeli and Palestinians on a “collision course”.
"Israelis and Palestinians remain on a collision course amid escalating political and inflammatory rhetoric as well as heightened violence in the West Bank," he said.
He called it "imperative" for both sides to refrain "from provocations and unilateral steps ― including at the Holy sites in Jerusalem ― that undermine... the ability to achieve a negotiated peace".
On January 3, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited a sensitive Jerusalem holy site, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, raising a wave of international condemnation.
Mr Wennesland told the Security Council he is "very concerned about the impact" on the finances of the Palestinian Authority from a series of retaliatory sanctions that Israel imposed after the UN resolution requesting an ICJ opinion.
Mr Netanyahu’s government slapped a series of sanctions on the Palestinian Authority following the UN vote that freezes construction plans in the West Bank and transferred tens of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax revenue collected by Israel to the families of Israeli victims of attacks by Palestinians.
