Important Takeaways:

• The United Nations general assembly’s resolution on Wednesday advanced a dramatic legal shift, begun by the international court of justice (ICJ) in July, in how we understand Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
• The ICJ had found Israel’s prolonged occupation to be unlawful and ordered it to end “as rapidly as possible”.
• The headline on the general assembly resolution was that it ordered Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory within one year. But that is only the beginning.
• International humanitarian law, which governs warfare, is neutral about the fact of occupation but imposes duties on the occupier for how it must treat the occupied population.
• But the ICJ, and now the general assembly, also looked to a separate body of law which regards prolonged occupation as the illegal forcible acquisition of territory.
• Israel is violating both sets of laws.
• The general assembly and ICJ actions also have implications for the international criminal court (ICC), which is currently considering the prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as three senior Hamas officials.
• The Israeli government will undoubtedly resist, but everyone else has a duty to press it to comply – and to avoid any contribution, military or commercial, to Israeli defiance.

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