UN member states endorsed the ICJ’s findings and pressed Israel to fulfill its authorized obligations as an occupying energy.
Revealed On 12 Dec 2025
The United Nations Basic Meeting has overwhelmingly backed a decision demanding that Israel open unrestricted humanitarian entry to the Gaza Strip, cease attacking UN amenities, and adjust to worldwide legislation in step with its obligations as an occupying energy.
The vote on Friday adopted October’s advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which outlined Israel’s duties underneath each the UN Constitution and humanitarian legislation.
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Israel has solely allowed into Gaza a fraction of the humanitarian help deliveries agreed to as a part of the United States-brokered ceasefire that got here into impact in October.
The UN decision, tabled by Norway alongside greater than a dozen different states, secured assist from 139 international locations.
Solely 12 voted in opposition to, together with Israel and the US, whereas 19 abstained.
Introducing the draft, Norway’s Everlasting Consultant Merete Fjeld Brattested warned that “2024 was among the many most violent years in three many years, 2025 has adopted swimsuit,” including that the scenario within the occupied Palestinian territory remained “a specific level in thoughts”.
“Civilians are paying the very best value. Respect for humanitarian ideas is eroding. Probably the most basic tenets of humanitarian legislation are underneath stress,” she mentioned, emphasising that the ICJ’s advisory proceedings had been essential for clarifying state obligations.
Brattested famous that member states had sought authorized readability “on basic points pertaining to the supply of life-saving humanitarian help to the civilian inhabitants in Palestine”.
She pointed to current attacks that underscored the urgency of the Courtroom’s findings, together with UN chief Antonio Guterres’s condemnation of Israel’s “unauthorised entry” into UNRWA’s Sheikh Jarrah compound. “As said by the secretary-general, that is in clear violation of Israel’s obligations to respect the inviolability of United Nations premises,” she mentioned.
US rejects vote
Talking earlier than the vote, US envoy Jeff Bartos rejected the decision, claiming it “exemplifies how even following President [Donald] Trump’s landmark peace settlement and the historic passage of Safety Council decision 2803, the Basic Meeting continues its decades-long sample of unfairly concentrating on Israel.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN Company for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the meantime, welcomed the end result, saying it supplied “a robust endorsement” of the ICJ’s discovering that allegations of Hamas infiltration contained in the company “will not be substantiated”, nor are claims that UNRWA lacks neutrality.
“This vote is a vital signal of assist for UNRWA from the overwhelming majority of the worldwide neighborhood,” he mentioned.
Palestinian Nationwide Council Speaker Rouhi Fattouh additionally praised the adoption, saying the broad margin mirrored “a agency worldwide place supporting UNRWA and renewing recognition of its authorized mandate and its key position in defending Palestinian refugees”.
He warned of “a harmful escalation and improve within the stage of occupation crimes and ethnic cleaning, and a worsening of the humanitarian scenario contained in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
