China has told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the Palestinians “must not be denied” justice at a hearing on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
“Justice has been long delayed, but it must not be denied,” China’s Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser Ma Xinmin told the court in The Hague in the Netherlands on Thursday, Al Jazeera reports.
“Fifty-seven years have passed since Israel began its occupation of the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). The unlawful nature of the occupation and sovereignty over the occupied territories remain unchanged,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from The Hague, said China used its time at the ICJ to counter the United States’ argument on Wednesday that Israel should not be ordered to unconditionally withdraw from the occupied territories without security guarantees.
“The US said the United Nations and the ICJ should stay out of a bilateral issue between Israel and Palestine. According to China, it was definitely a matter for the UN to talk about the self-determination of the Palestinian people,” Vaessen said.
“The Chinese representative said Israel is a foreign nation occupying Palestine, so the right to self-defence lies more with the Palestinians than with the Israelis.”
The ICJ is hearing from about 50 countries on their opinion about the occupation and is part of a push by Palestinians to get international legal institutions to examine Israeli policy, the Al Jazeera report said.
On Monday, Palestinian representatives asked the judges to declare Israel’s occupation of their territory illegal and said its opinion could help reach a two-state solution.