The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories on Friday sharply criticised Israel for attempting to justify its military offensive in the Occupied West Bank, saying Tel Aviv cannot claim self-defence for its occupation and actions in the region, Anadolu Agency reports.
Since early Wednesday, the Israeli army has been conducting a large-scale and ongoing military offensive in the cities of Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas in the northern West Bank, which is the most extensive since 2002.
As of Friday afternoon, at least 19 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military assaults.
“Israel claims that what it is doing in the West Bank is justified under the law of self-defence,” Francesca Albanese said in a statement on X, rejecting it with the words: “This claim has no validity.”
She highlighted that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled 20 years ago that Israel could not invoke self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify constructing the Wall in Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Albanese further highlighted that the ICJ recently reaffirmed its position, indicating that “Israel’s very presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is itself unlawful.”
She argued that Israel’s occupation could not be justified by any claim of “self-defence”, adding, “As an ongoing unlawful use of force, Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories cannot be justified by any claim of self-defence.”
The UN official condemned Israel’s manipulation of international law, saying, “Israel’s perversion of the law on self-defence must be recognised for what it is: a brazen attempt to provide an imprimatur of ‘legality’ to the maintenance of its unlawful aggression against the territorial integrity and political independence of the State of Palestine.”
Albanese stressed that Israel withdraw from the Occupied Territories to achieve genuine security, adding, “If Israel truly wants to achieve its claimed security, the best and most obvious way to do that would be to cease its colonisation of another people’s land, withdraw from all of it, and make appropriate reparation for damage caused (as requested by the ICJ), while being sure to apologise to its victims on the way out.”