THE HAGUE - The International Court of Justice said Friday that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and its settlements there, violated international law — the most sweeping stance laid out by the world's highest court on an issue that has been the subject of debates and resolutions at the United Nations (UN) for decades.
The court issued an advisory opinion that, while not binding, carries authority and legal weight. It is unlikely to affect Israeli policy but could shape international opinion.
"The Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and the regime associated with them have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law," the court's president, Nawaf Salam, said as he issued the 83-page opinion at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands.
The court also said that Israel's presence in the territories should come to an end "as rapidly as possible" and that Israel was "under an obligation to provide full reparation for the damage caused by its internationally wrongful acts to all natural or legal persons concerned."
Friday's pronouncement received heightened attention because of the war in the Gaza Strip, which began more than nine months ago, and because of a separate genocide case brought in the same court by South Africa against Israel in December over its conduct in the war.
In an initial ruling on the genocide case in January, the court ordered Israel to restrain its attacks in Gaza, and in May it ordered the country to immediately halt its military offensive in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza.
The UN General Assembly in 2022 asked the court for its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's "prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation" of territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war, including the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the decision "mendacious" and said that Israeli settlement in all parts of its land was legal.
"The Jewish people is not an occupier in its land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the tracks of our forefathers in Judea and Samaria," he said, using the Israeli designation for the territories that make up the West Bank.
In his response, Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted an Israeli flag emoji on social media and added: "The answer to The Hague — sovereignty now." The comment reflected the view of many Israeli religious nationalists and settlers that the government should declare the occupied lands part of Israel.
Many Palestinians were likely to welcome the court's opinion as a vindication and the Palestinian Authority said in a statement that it was a "victory for justice" as it "affirmed that the Israeli occupation is illegal."
Israel annexed east Jerusalem decades ago, in a move that did not garner widespread international recognition.
The country regards the occupied West Bank as disputed territory and wants the future status of it to be decided in negotiations, but it has allowed hundreds of thousands of Jews to settle there, on land envisioned by Palestinians — and many of Israel's allies — as part of a future Palestinian state. Critics say the settlements carve the West Bank into a patchwork that make a potential state increasingly untenable, while many settlement advocates oppose Palestinian statehood and support annexation by Israel.
Israel withdrew from Gaza and dismantled its settlements there in 2005 but partly blockaded the territory, along with Egypt, for 17 years after Hamas seized control of it in 2007. Now much of Gaza is once again under Israeli military control.
Netanyahu's government receives diplomatic, economic and military support from the United States and other allies and so appears in a strong position to disregard the opinion. But analysts said it was nevertheless significant, not least because of the strength of the court's language and the scope of its opinion.
Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an international lawyer and an expert on Middle East politics at Chatham House, a research group in London, called the opinion a "legal earthquake" and said it was the strongest opinion that the court had ever issued.
"It's a sign that the occupation has gone on for too long and not enough efforts by the parties and by the international communities has been made to resolve the issue," she said, adding that the opinion might paradoxically strengthen the far-right coalition's push for annexation.
Michael Milshtein, an analyst of Palestinian affairs at Tel Aviv University, said a dramatic Israeli government reaction to the court's opinion would be unlikely in the short term because of Netanyahu's planned visit to Washington next week, and it would "create another headache."
Other analysts said that the opinion would be impossible for some foreign governments to disregard.
"It could influence the foreign policies of certain European countries," said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, noting that Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have in recent weeks joined more than 140 other countries in recognising a Palestinian state.
The international court held hearings in February at the Peace Palace. Israel did not appear at that session but filed a submission rejecting the validity of the proceedings as biased. The Palestinian Authority's foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, told the court that Israel had subjected Palestinians to decades of discrimination, leaving them with the choice of "displacement, subjugation or death."
Over the course of several days, representatives of more than 50 countries, an unusually high number for the court, addressed the hearings. Most sided with the Palestinian representatives. But a few speakers at the court, including those from the United States, Britain and Hungary — among Israel's traditional allies — sided with Israel.
A US State Department official argued before the court that Israel's policies toward the Palestinians were determined by its "very real security needs."
Two focal points of Friday's case were Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as well as the government's tolerance of violent land grabs by Jewish settlers.
Every Israeli government has allowed some Israeli construction in the territories, but the Netanyahu government has expanded the program and announced plans for thousands of new housing units. More than 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since 1967, and there are 2.7 million Palestinians in the territory.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.