THE HAGUE (AFP) – Israel was urged to cease constructing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by the International Court of Justice, which said on Friday that Israel’s existence in the occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful. While Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu praised the ruling, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, stated that it could not change the “legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland.”
In an unprecedented and broad denunciation of Israel’s rule over the lands it took 57 years ago, the top UN court declared on Friday that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian Territories is “unlawful” and demanded that it cease immediately, along with the construction of settlements.
