PALESTINIAN Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad al-Maliki accused Israel of apartheid today and urged the United Nations’ top court to declare that the occupation of Palestinian land is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally.

The remarks came at the start of historic hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestinian land. 

The current war by the Israelis on the Palestinians in Gaza was an important backdrop to the hearing. 

Mr Maliki told the ICJ that “2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of them children, are besieged and bombed, killed and maimed, starved and displaced.”

“More than 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem, are subjected to colonisation of their territory and racist violence that enables it,” he added.

Representing the Palestinians, international law expert Paul Reichler told the court that the policies of Israel’s government “are aligned to an unprecedented extent with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in practice to further integrate those areas within the territory” of Israel.

The hearing is expected to last six days, but judges are likely to take months to issue an opinion.

Citing the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN charter, Mr Maliki said that “for decades, the Palestinian people have been denied this right and have endured both colonialism and apartheid.”

The Palestinians argue that Israel, by annexing large swaths of occupied land, has violated the prohibition on territorial conquest and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and has imposed a system of racial discrimination and apartheid.

Mr Maliki said the “occupation is annexation and supremacist in nature,” and appealed to the court to uphold the Palestinian right to self-determination and declare “that the Israeli occupation is illegal and must end immediately, totally and unconditionally.”

The Palestinian delegation also said a move by the UN court could increase the chances for a peace that would allow the Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side.

An unprecedented 51 countries and three international organisations are set to speak at the hearing. 

Israel is not scheduled to speak during the hearings, but may submit a written statement.

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 six-day war and considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, whose future should be decided in negotiations.