Israel on Wednesday dismissed the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, issued earlier in the day, that the Jewish state must facilitate relief efforts by United Nations entities to the Gaza Strip, in particular those of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The Israeli government has long criticized UNRWA’s operations in the Gaza Strip, having revealed that the organization is effectively controlled by Hamas. That criticism sharpened after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack amid revelations that hundreds of UNRWA employees were active Hamas members, with dozens taking part in the mass slaughter.
“Israel categorically rejects the ICJ’s ‘advisory opinion,’ which was entirely predictable from the outset regarding UNRWA. This is yet another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of ‘International Law,’” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted to X immediately following the court’s ruling.
Hamas terror activity within UNRWA took place before, during and after the Oct. 7 massacre, the Foreign Ministry said, yet the United Nations never fully investigated it, despite Israel having provided extensive evidence proving Hamas infiltration into the organization.
Yuji Iwasawa, the head of the ICJ, reading the court’s opinion, said that the information regarding Hamas’s “alleged” penetration of UNRWA was insufficient “to establish UNRWA’s lack of neutrality.”
Acknowledging last year’s investigation by the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which found nine UNRWA personnel had taken part in the onslaught, Iwasawa said it was “insufficient to support a conclusion that UNRWA as a whole is not a neutral organization.”
Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, an analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, was not surprised by the ICJ’s conclusions. “What people forget is that the ICJ is not a real court, certainly not a court in which one can possibly get justice. It’s just an organ of the U.N. And what the U.N. decides is what the court decides,” he told JNS.
Whether the court’s opinion will have any real-world impact, Hirsch said depends on how Israel responds. “Israel should say, ‘We do not care what the court decides. With all due respect, UNRWA was invited by Israel, and that invitation can be revoked, factually and legally, at any stage whatsoever,’” Hirsch said.
Israel is under no obligation to permit a “terror-infested organization” whose members participated in the Oct. 7 massacre to operate in the area, he stressed, noting that UNRWA has taken advantage of Israeli generosity. Each year, UNRWA received hundreds of millions of shekels in tax relief from Israel at the same time that it was actively supporting terrorists, he said.
Anne Herzberg, legal Advisor at NGO Monitor, also wasn’t surprised by the ICJ’s ruling. “The ICJ, as the U.N. court, unsurprisingly, solely credited self-serving U.N. claims, particularly those made by UNRWA, while ignoring the copious evidence disproving their statements,” she told JNS.
“The ICJ opinion was aimed at maintaining U.N. influence and control over billions of dollars in aid and absolving the institution of any accountability for supporting Hamas and aiding and abetting the terror group’s military machine,” she added.
While the ICJ’s opinion isn’t binding, she said she didn’t doubt that anti-Israel NGOs and countries, such as Turkey, Qatar, South Africa, and Norway, which orchestrated the opinion, will use the court’s “tendentious claims to promote BDS and contribute to the growing atmosphere of antisemitism globally,” Herzberg added.
Others criticized the ICJ’s advisory opinion. The U.S. State Department called it a “corrupt ruling” and “nakedly politicized” in an X post on Wednesday.
"[It] unfairly bashes Israel and gives UNRWA a free pass for its deep entanglement with and material support for Hamas terrorism,” the State Department said.
“This ICJ’s ongoing abuse of its advisory opinion discretion suggests that it is nothing more than a partisan political tool, which can be weaponized against Americans,” it added.
In the lead-up to the court’s opinion, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Sen. Jim Risch, (R-Idaho) tweeted on Tuesday:
“UNRWA never was, nor will be, a neutral, independent humanitarian actor. It’s permanently tied itself to terrorism and no amount of distance will sever it. Gaza and Palestinians will never be able to truly enter a new era if UNRWA is still present. The @UN is not learning from its mistakes.”
The advisory opinion also insisted that Israel respect the “inviolability” of UNRWA property and facilities, criticizing the passage of two laws by Israel’s Knesset in Oct. 2024 that banned UNRWA within Israel.
“These laws directly resulted in obstructions to the operations of UNRWA… in relation to the occupied Palestinian territory, in particular in the Gaza Strip,” Iwasawa said.
Said Herzberg, “The Knesset laws were the direct result of the U.N.’s refusal to implement safeguards to Hamas aid diversion. UNRWA has only itself to blame.”
