ISTANBUL

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories on Friday sharply criticized Israel for attempting to justify its military offensive in the occupied West Bank, saying Tel Aviv cannot claim self-defense for its occupation and actions in the region.

Since early Wednesday, the Israeli army has been conducting a large-scale and ongoing military offensive in the cities of Tulkarm, Jenin, and Tubas in the northern West Bank, which is the most extensive since 2002.

As of Friday afternoon, at least 19 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military assaults.

"Israel claims that what it is doing in the West Bank is justified under the law of self-defense," Francesca Albanese said in a statement on X, rejecting it with the words: "This claim has no validity."

She highlighted that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled 20 years ago that Israel could not invoke self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify constructing the Wall in occupied Palestinian territory.

Albanese further highlighted that the ICJ recently reaffirmed its position, indicating that “Israel’s very presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is itself unlawful.”

She argued that Israel’s occupation could not be justified by any claim of “self-defense,” adding, “As an ongoing unlawful use of force, Israel’s occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories cannot be justified by any claim of self-defense.”

The UN official condemned Israel's manipulation of international law, saying, “Israel’s perversion of the law on self-defense must be recognized for what it is: a brazen attempt to provide an imprimatur of ‘legality’ to the maintenance of its unlawful aggression against the territorial integrity and political independence of the State of Palestine.”

Albanese stressed that Israel withdraw from the occupied territories to achieve genuine security, adding, “If Israel truly wants to achieve its claimed security, the best and most obvious way to do that would be to cease its colonization of another people’s land, withdraw from all of it, and make appropriate reparation for damage caused (as requested by the ICJ), while being sure to apologize to its victims on the way out.”

Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank amid a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 40,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year.

At least 673 Palestinians have been killed, nearly 5,400 others injured, and over 10,300 arrested in the occupied territory, according to Palestinian figures.

In a landmark opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.