Israel's attacks against the UN show it is not a credible partner for peace in the Middle East, the Arab League's representative told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday.
Hearings concluded over Israel's obligations to enable humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and the occupied West Bank after a week-long session in The Hague, where 45 states and entities delivered oral statements.
The majority argued that Israel is legally obligated to ensure the delivery of aid and condemned its total blockade on Gaza, in place since March 2, as well as its ban on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Israel did not send a representative to the court, but its key ally, the US, echoed Israeli criticism of what it described as UNRWA's lack of neutrality. It also argued that Israel was entitled to restrict aid access on security grounds.
The Arab League took a sharply critical tone. Representing the bloc, international law professor Mohamed Helal said the lack of empathy shown by the international community towards Palestinians was troubling. "The decades of dispossession and countless crimes committed against the Palestinians have led us to wonder whether the people of Palestine are less deserving of compassion, less worthy of empathy, less entitled to justice, or simply less human," he said.
He spoke of the Arab League's 2002 Peace Initiative as a long-standing framework for a two-state solution under international law. "But Israel has consistently failed to seize this opportunity for peace," Mr Helal said.
"Israel's political leadership has shown that it is not a credible partner for peace. Indeed, Israel has now launched an offensive against the UN, civil society and other states that have been moved to aid the Palestinians out of a realisation that never again is now, and that history will neither forgive nor forget those who stood aside as Israel's onslaught continues to unfold in Gaza and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories."
UNRWA as a tool against displacement
UNRWA is much more than a relief agency – it is the instrument by which the UN protects the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Mr Helal argued. That echoed statements put forward by Egypt on the first day of hearings.
UNRWA delivers basic services, including health case and education, to about 5.9 million Palestinians in the Mena region, who are in large part the descendants of the 750,000 Palestinians who fled during the 1948 Arab-Israel War.
"For decades, [UNRWA] has preserved the integrity of the Palestinians as a people," Mr Helal said. "It prevented their dispersal and forced displacement, and it ensured that they remain on the territory in relation to which they are entitled to exercise self determination."
Israel has breached international law since its foundation in 1948 through its conquest of Palestinian territory, and in 1967 the country prepared the ground for "repeated infringements of shared norms", said French public law professor Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, the representative of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation.
Israel has faced condemnation over its actions in Gaza. The bodies of 15 first responders – eight Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedics, six civil defence members and one UN officer – were recently found in a mass grave in Gaza, after they were shot and killed by Israeli troops on March 23. More than 52,400 Palestinians have been killed in 18 months of war in the enclave.
"The presence of UNRWA and the activities of the agency in the service of Palestinian refugees, that are the overwhelming majority of the population of Gaza, had made it possible up until now to avoid this population being decimated," Ms Chemillier-Gendreau said. "What we are now seeing is, with the prohibition imposed on UNRWA to carry on with its missions, the consequences of the transgressions that the illegal occupant is inflicting on the rights of Palestinians."
Earlier in the day, senior Chinese official Ma Xinmin said his country was "deeply concerned" about the killing of humanitarian personnel. Palestinians face no more urgent a threat than the deprivation of humanitarian assistance, said Mr Ma, director general of the department of treaty and law at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"The desperate eyes of Gaza's children peer over conscience with two burning questions: will international law surrender to the brute force? Will the pillars of civilisation yield before the law of jungle?"
The ICJ is likely to take several months to issue its advisory opinions. They are not legally binding, but are viewed as carrying moral weight.
