End-of-Week Wrap-Up

The United Nations’ top court said Friday that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal, in an unprecedented opinion that called on Israel to end its decades-long occupation of territories claimed by Palestinians for a future state.

The advisory opinion, while non-binding, was the first time the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has expressed its view on the legality of Israel’s presence in territories it captured in the 1967 war.

An advisory opinion is not legally binding but carries moral authority and can shape international law, according to the ICJ. Friday’s opinion prompted condemnation from Israeli leaders and praise from Palestinian officials.

In its sweeping judgment, the ICJ ran through a list of Israeli practices that it said violated international law, including confiscating land, building Israeli settlements in the territories, and depriving Palestinians of natural resources and the right to self-determination. The court called on Israel to cease new settlement activity, evacuate settlers and make reparations for the damage caused.

“The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful,” the opinion read.

Judge Nawaf Salam, the president of the ICJ, which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands, said the court observed that “large-scale confiscation of land and the degradation of access to natural resources divests the local population of their basic means of subsistence thus inducing their departure.”

The court also found that Israel’s declaration of Jerusalem as its capital helped to “entrench Israel’s control of the occupied Palestinian territory” and said that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are “in violation of international law.”

During the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights from neighboring Arab states. Soon after, it began establishing Jewish settlements in those territories.

The Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza for a future state, with East Jerusalem at its capital. Israel considers the entirety of Jerusalem as its “eternal capital.”

In its opinion, the court concluded that all states and international organizations, including the United Nations, are under an obligation “not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The case predates the current Israel-Hamas war, and stems from a 2022 request for an advisory opinion by the UN General Assembly. The 15 judges on the court were asked to consider “the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

It is also separate from the ICJ proceedings held in January over an accusation from South Africa that Israel was committing genocide in its war against Hamas following the October 7 attacks – a claim Israel has vehemently denied.

‘False decision’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politicians rejected the ICJ opinion.

“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth, just as the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”

Foreign Minister Israel Katz also condemned the opinion, calling it “fundamentally warped, one-sided, and wrong.”

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, also spoke out against the court. “The answer to The Hague – sovereignty now,” Smotrich said on X, a call for Israel to annex the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) welcomed the opinion, calling it “a watershed moment for Palestine, for justice, and for international law.”

The opinion “couldn’t be more timely or sorely needed,” the PA said in a statement, adding that it “is a vindication of their steadfastness and perseverance.” The PA also urged all states and the UN not to recognize the legality of the settlements and to “do nothing to assist Israel in maintaining this illegal situation.”

Implications of the ICJ opinion

While the ICJ has previously given advisory opinions about Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Friday’s announcement is a step further, some experts said.

The ICJ in 2004 delivered an advisory opinion on the Israeli separation barrier around the majority of the West Bank, urging Israel to remove it from occupied land. The nonbinding opinion had found that Israel was obligated to return confiscated land or make reparations for any destruction or damage to homes, businesses and farms caused by the barrier’s construction.

“That’s a major difference – not the legality of the settlements per se, but the implications of the settlements and the entire practice around them,” Lieblich said.

While ICJ opinions are not binding, they are perceived as “very authoritative statements of international law as is,” he said, adding that they may have an impact on international organizations taking this opinion to domestic courts, demanding for example that individual counties refrain from exporting weapons that may be used in the occupied territories.

This story has been updated with additional developments and context

The highly infectious polio virus has been found in sewage samples in Gaza, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting a disease that can cause paralysis.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) both said they had carried out tests and found samples of the virus in sewage water.

“Poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2) had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected on 23 June from Khan Younis and Deir al Balah,” WHO said Friday.

WHO said the findings are linked to the “disastrous sanitation situation” created by Israel’s brutal military assault in Gaza since the Hamas attacks of October 7.

“It is important to note the virus has been isolated from the environment only at this time; no associated paralytic cases have been detected,” WHO added. It said no one has yet been treated in Gaza for paralysis or other symptoms of polio, but that residents must now “contend with the threat” posed by the disease.

Various United Nations agencies – including UNICEF, the children’s fund, and UNRWA, the agency for Palestinian refugees – are working with local health authorities to determine how far the virus has spread.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said polio vaccination rates prior to the conflict were “optimal,” but that Israel’s war against Hamas had created “the perfect environment for diseases like polio to spread.”

“The decimation of the health system, lack of security, access obstruction, constant population displacement, shortages of medical supplies, poor quality of water and weakened sanitation are increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio,” Tedros warned.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza called for practices to improve hygiene and safety.

“Detecting the virus that causes polio in sewage portends a real health disaster and exposes thousands of residents to the risk of contracting polio,” it said in a statement, demanding “an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression.”

Wild polio was eradicated from Gaza more than 25 years ago, with pre-war vaccination coverage reaching 95% in 2022, according to WHO.

Poliovirus can emerge when poor vaccination coverage allows the weakened form of the orally administered vaccine virus strain to mutate into a stronger version capable of causing paralysis, a spokesman from WHO’s global Polio Eradication program said.

At least 40 people have died after the boat they were traveling in caught fire off the coast of Haiti earlier this week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Friday, citing local authorities.

The vessel left Haiti on Wednesday carrying over 80 migrants, and was headed to Turks and Caicos, the IOM said. Forty-one survivors were rescued by Haiti’s Coast Guard, it also said.

In a statement, Grégoire Goodstein, IOM’s chief of mission in the country, blamed the tragedy on Haiti’s spiraling security crisis and the lack of “safe and legal pathways for migration.”

“Haiti’s socio-economic situation is in agony. The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more,” he said.

Haiti is grappling with gang violence, a collapsing health system, and a lack of access to essential supplies, leading many Haitians to embark on dangerous journeys out of the country.

The Caribbean nation’s crisis escalated earlier this year when gang warfare exploded, forcing the resignation of the then-government. The number of migration attempts by boat from Haiti have risen since then, according to IOM data.

But chaos in the country has not stopped neighboring governments from repatriating Haitian migrants by the tens of thousands.

“More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year. In March, despite a surge in violence and the closure of airports throughout the country, forced returns increased by 46 per cent, reaching 13,000 forced returns in March alone,” the agency said in its statement.

In recent weeks, the appointment of new Prime Minister Garry Conille and the arrival of several hundred foreign forces to bolster Haiti’s National Police have offered new hope for addressing the crisis. The United Nations Security Council-backed Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, led by Kenya, is now beginning operations in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

Hiroshima, the Japanese city devastated by a US atomic bomb in 1945, is at the center of a growing controversy after local officials dismissed calls to disinvite Israel from its annual ceremony promoting world peace as war rages in Gaza.

Every year on August 6, Hiroshima gathers foreign officials, along with locals, in a minute of silence at 8:15 a.m. to mark the exact moment the bomb dropped, killing tens of thousands of people and leading to the end of World War II.

Some activists and atomic bomb survivors’ groups say the ceremony is no place for Israel, which is pounding Gaza with strikes as it seeks to eradicate Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group’s devastating attack on October 7 last year.

They say the Hiroshima city government should exclude Israel from this year’s ceremony, as it has Russia and Belarus for the past two years over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

But Hiroshima authorities say they have no intention of excluding Israel.

“Russia and Belarus are not invited in order to ensure the ceremony goes smoothly.”

Israel’s war in Gaza may “prevent the smooth execution of the ceremony,” they said, stressing the move was not a gesture of protest but a practical consideration.

Calls for Israel’s exclusion

Of the two ceremonies, Hiroshima’s is the largest with representatives from 115 countries and the European Union set to attend this year.

Envoys from Russia and Belarus haven’t attended since Hiroshima excluded them in 2022 following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February that year. Russia used Belarus as one of the launch pads for its assault and later moved some of its tactical nuclear weapons there.

This year’s Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony takes place against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, where Israel’s bombardment has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced nearly the entire enclave’s more than 2 million people, who now face severe shortages of food, shelter, water and medical supplies.

“Why invite Israel if they are committing genocide-like crimes, just like Russia and Belarus?” said Tetsuji Kumada, executive director of Hiroshima’s Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization, one of the groups opposing Israel’s presence.

Another group, Hiroshima-Palestine Vigil Community, launched an online petition in May, calling for Israel’s representatives to be excluded, saying that “current global protests against Israel clearly outnumber those against Russia in both scale and frequency.”

The petition has since amassed more than 30,000 signatures.

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations from critics as well as rights groups and experts that it has broken international humanitarian law with the breadth of its response to Hamas’ attacks. It argues its war is against Hamas, not Palestinians, although anger over the extent of the destruction and civilian deaths in Gaza has swelled globally.

Japan has taken a strong stance in Russia’s war on Ukraine, pledging to stand with Kyiv, offering billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and military vehicles and equipment for mine-clearing operations. It has also imposed sanctions on Russia.

Meanwhile, Tokyo has offered humanitarian aid to Gaza, expressed “deep concern” for the critical situation in the strip and supports a two-state solution to the conflict.

According to Japanese news agency Kyodo News, the Hiroshima government referred to the war in Gaza in its invitation to Israel, urging the country to cease its offensive.

The invitation said it was “deeply regrettable that the lives and everyday existences of many people are being taken away,” Kyodo reported.

Palestinians not invited

The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later led to Japan’s unconditional surrender and brought an end to World War II. But it also killed tens of thousands of people, both instantly and in the months and years to come due to radiation sickness.

Every year, diplomats in Japan are invited to Hiroshima to join the commemoration that highlights the importance of peace and cautions against the use of nuclear weapons.

But while some advocacy groups urged Hiroshima to shun Israel, others supported its presence.

“As a city of international peace, Hiroshima city needs to invite all nations, regardless of whether they are at war or not,” said Kunihiko Sakuma, president of Hiroshima Hidankyo, an atomic bomb survivors’ advocacy group.

Hiroshima authorities said they only send invitations to countries with embassies in Japan and have never invited Palestinian representatives to the ceremony.

At a news conference last week, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa reiterated Japan’s support for a two-state solution.

“We continue to comprehensively consider the recognition of Palestinian statehood, taking into account how to advance the peace process,” she said.

Junko Ogura contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky struck an unusually subdued tone as he addressed his nation this week, hinting at a willingness to negotiate with Russia for the first time since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion more than two years ago.

Zelensky suggested Moscow should send a delegation to the next peace summit that he hopes to hold in November. Russia was not invited to the previous peace conference, held in Switzerland last month, as Zelensky said any talks could only happen after a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.

Kyiv is currently facing the double whammy of a difficult frontline situation and political uncertainty over the level of future support from Ukraine’s closest allies.

While the progress Russian troops are making in eastern Ukraine has slowed significantly since US weapons started arriving in the country in May, it has not stopped entirely. Russia is still gaining territory, albeit at a much slower pace.

At the same time, questions are emerging about the willingness of some of Ukraine’s closest and most important allies – notably the United States and Germany – to continue pouring resources into the conflict in support of Kyiv.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Zelensky said Ukraine was not receiving enough Western assistance to win the war, pointing out that its outcome will be determined way beyond Ukraine’s borders.

“Not everything depends on us. We know what would be a just end to the war, but it doesn’t depend only on us. It depends not only on our people and our desire, but also on finance, on weapons, on political support, on unity in the EU, in NATO, in the world,” the president said.

Former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said it was plausible Zelensky’s shift in tone was a reaction to the events unfolding in the United States, where former President Donald Trump on Monday announced a staunch critic of sending support to Ukraine, JD Vance, as his running mate.

“It has to be (a) reasonable peace, which does not permit Russian occupiers to continue to torture, repress and murder the people of Ukraine who are being occupied,” he said. Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of torture and human rights abuses in Ukraine despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Trump and Zelensky spoke on Friday in what Trump called a “had a very good phone call”.

The former president said he would “bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives” while Zelensky said the two discussed “what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.”

Unacceptable terms

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated several times in recent months that he would be willing to negotiate with Ukraine – albeit on terms that remain completely unacceptable to Ukraine and its Western allies.

Putin said Russia would end its war in Ukraine if Kyiv surrendered the entirety of four regions claimed by Moscow: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Large swathes of these regions remain under Ukrainian control, so he is essentially asking Ukraine to give up territory without a fight. Putin also said any peace deal would require Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO, prompting Kyiv to call the proposal “offensive to common sense.”

Orysia Lutsevych, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, said that considering Putin’s public demands, Zelensky’s words were likely meant as a message to the rest of the world.

Lutsevych believes Putin has stepped up his calls for negotiations because he knows his window of opportunity may be closing.

Despite being considerably bigger and stronger than Ukraine, Russia has not managed to fulfil its territorial goals – even when Kyiv was receiving only limited help from the West. Moscow’s initial attempt to take the capital ended up in a defeat and the front lines have not moved considerably in more than a year.

Uncertainty ahead

New US military assistance started reaching the front lines in Ukraine in May, after months of delays caused by political deadlock in the US Congress. At the same time, Ukraine finally received permission from some Western nations to use their weapons to strike targets inside Russia – although only in limited circumstances and in areas near the border with Ukraine.

While this has helped slow Russian progress and averted a possible reoccupation of the Kharkiv region, Ukraine is still defending territory, rather than pushing forward to reclaim areas currently under Russian occupation.

“Ukrainian forces are going to have to accumulate equipment, material and manpower for a future counteroffensive operation, and that’s part of the Russian calculus that we are seeing – the Russian military command very much appears to be pursuing a strategy where they are conducting consistent, grinding offensive operations throughout the entire front line,” said Riley Bailey, a Russia analyst at the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

By making gradual, creeping advances along the more than 600-mile-long (1,000 kilometer) front line, Russia is forcing Ukraine to commit to defensive operations rather than gear up for a counteroffensive, Bailey said.

“They will need to degrade the Russian forces and capabilities that are part of the offensive operations, which would bring some more flexibility and ease some of the pressure,” Bailey said. “Ukraine can then start making some operational choices that it hasn’t been able to make in the past few months.”

But the success of any future Ukrainian counteroffensive will depend primarily on how much support it receives from its Western allies going forward. Zelensky said this week that the current level of support was enough to hold off further Russian advances, but not win the war.

This week brought more uncertainty on that front, as Trump announced that he had picked Vance as his vice-presidential nominee. Vance has previously suggested Ukraine should negotiate with Russia because the US and other allies do not have the capacity to support it. Trump himself has claimed he would “end the war in one day” and said the US shouldn’t be sending money to Ukraine with no strings attached.

At the same time, it emerged that Germany, which is among Ukraine’s biggest supporters, plans to halve its military aid to Ukraine next year – although it suggested Ukraine should be able to meet the bulk of its military needs with the $50 billion in loans from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets approved by the G7 last month.

If the worst-case scenario for Ukraine was to materialize – if the US stopped providing aid, Europe didn’t step up its assistance and Ukraine wasn’t able to access the frozen Russian assets – Russia would likely start to make much bigger gains.

Herbst said that if the Democrats win the US presidential election in November, the current US policy of supporting Ukraine is likely to continue, with more aid flowing in.

“If Trump were to win, we don’t know what he will do. But we know that there are serious people on his national security team who will understand that Putin is a direct threat to American interests and that it is important or critical to the US that Putin lose in Ukraine,” he added.

But Herbst said there is one more factor which could convince a possible Trump administration to keep helping Ukraine.

“If his team cuts off aid, and Ukraine collapses, that will be a major defeat to the United States, caused by the Trump team. And a defeat that would dwarf the embarrassment and the damage done by Biden’s incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan. And there will be people on his team that will understand that,” he said.

Analysts expect the Ukraine aid package – the more than $60 billion approved by the US Congress earlier this year – to last Kyiv about a year to 18 months, which could be enough time for Ukraine to regroup and launch a new counteroffensive.

Lutsevych said that Ukraine desperately needs to make battlefield gains and then see if there is a real desire by Russia to negotiate – which she says doesn’t currently come across as genuine.

“But what evidence do we have that Russians are willing to negotiate? Putin is putting his country on a total war footing,” she said, adding that the war will likely end only if Moscow begins to feel threatened.

“I think this war will end when Putin begins to feel that the Russian control over Crimea is threatened.”

Ukraine has already stepped up its attacks against the peninsula, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 and home to Moscow’s Black Sea fleet. Kyiv claims its military has struck and sunk or severely damaged several Russian warships in the area, disabling at least a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Ukraine has also managed to hit and temporarily shut down the Kerch Strait bridge that connects Crimea with Russia on several occassions. The southern front – which stretches from the Donbas in eastern Ukraine across the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, with Russian-occupied territory creating a land bridge between Russia and Crimea – will be a key target.

While Zelensky’s tone might have shifted this week, his position on what a peace deal should look like hasn’t, or at least not publicly. The majority of Ukrainians do not want the government to give up any territory at all.

“Right now, it is politically difficult, if not impossible, to state that a peace can be achieved without the full return of all Ukrainian territories. But that doesn’t mean that over time, it couldn’t become possible,” Herbst said.

He believes Kyiv could “speak with some justification of Ukrainian victory in this war,” even if Ukraine doesn’t manage to get back all of its pre-war territory – as long as it reclaims enough to be an economically viable and secure state.

“But for it to be a secure state, especially in those circumstances, it must be a member of NATO. I believe that if this were truly on the table, meaning with the full faith and power of the United States behind it, this in theory could lead to a stable peace,” he said.

“It wouldn’t be a just peace, because you’re still consigning millions of Ukrainians to the tender mercies of a vicious regime of the Kremlin, which has shown it has no love — and that’s a very polite way to phrase it — for Ukrainians who believe they are Ukrainians, and not little Russians.”