Press Releases

Bethlehem, 14 July 2025 

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights has responded to the call for inputs from the Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory ahead of her forthcoming report to the UN General Assembly’s 80th session. In its submission, BADIL provided a detailed legal analysis, challenging the limited and erroneous framing of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2024 Advisory Opinion on “Israel’s policies and practices” and highlighted the broader obligations of third states under international law.

BADIL’s submission, titled “Beyond the Occupation: States’ Obligations to Stop the Genocide and Dismantle the Israeli Colonial-Apartheid Regime,” calls for an urgent shift in the international response and approach to Palestine. It underscores that the fragmented framing of the ICJ’s 2024 Advisory Opinion—particularly its exclusion of the genocide in the Gaza Strip and its confinement to the 1967 geographical scope—is flawed and must be overcome in order to address all ongoing illlegal Israeli policies and practices across Mandatory Palestine.

Indeed, not only have third states failed to bring “Israel’s illegal occupation” to an end, as called for by the ICJ, but they have also deepened their complicity in the Israeli regime’s broader system of colonization, apartheid, and forced displacement. This includes sustained political, military, and economic support, as well as obstruction of humanitarian aid mechanisms—in violation of their obligations under international law and, in some cases, amounting to complicity in ongoing Israeli crimes.

Third states must therefore recognize their full obligations under international law, including their duties to prevent and punish genocide under the Genocide Convention, and adopt immediate and comprehensive measures to dismantle the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime and decolonize Palestine—not just the “occupation”.

BADIL’s submission outlines the bare minimum obligations of third states, including imposing arms embargoes, suspending trade and diplomatic relations with complicit Israeli entities, and supporting universal jurisdiction and new accountability mechanisms to combat the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime and its ongoing genocide.

“The question is no longer whether third states have failed to end the occupation, but whether they are willing to stop enabling the entire Israeli colonial-apartheid regime and its crimes—including genocide,” the submission concludes. “Anything less is a betrayal of international law and the very system of protection the UN was created to uphold.”