The Saudi Ambassador to the Netherlands, Ziad bin Maashi Al Atiyah, confirmed today that "Israel" has no intent of negotiating with Palestinians, expressing deep frustration over Israeli officials' statements regarding the ethnic cleansing and deliberate displacement of Palestinians. 

In a speech in front of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the ambassador declared that the opinion of all countries part of the Court is very clear, and it is that occupation is "an illegal act", stressing that all Israeli actions in Palestine "cannot be defended." 

He also warned about the Court withholding from looking into this case, as this would mean that the system protecting countries will "lose all credibility", urging the ICJ to issue a ruling labeling the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegal. 

Al Atiyah further denounced "Israel's" ongoing settlement policies, despite the Court and UN Security Council resolutions emphasizing that the occupation's determination to make al-Quds its own "capital" contradicts the right of Palestinians "to self-determination and establishment of an independent state."

MULTIMEDIA: photos and videos of today's hearing in the advisory proceedings on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are available here https://t.co/P9AgKm6NLE pic.twitter.com/GOGhcy1YAC

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) February 19, 2024

'Israeli apartheid worse than what South Africa endured': ICJ hearings

In a continuous show of pro-Palestine solidarity, South Africa slammed "Israel's" apartheid in Palestine as worse than the one it experienced pre-1994, at the International Court of Justice on Tuesday. 

"We as South Africans sense, see, hear, and feel to our core the inhumane discriminatory policies and practices of the Israeli regime as an even more extreme form of the apartheid that was institutionalized against black people in my country," said South Africa's ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, at the top court. 

Madonsela added that the Israeli apartheid, being a crime itself, is simultaneously and fundamentally settler colonialism that South Africa felt obligated "to call out and end."

The ICJ is conducting hearings throughout the week to assess the legal consequences of the Israeli 75-year-long occupation, with the court focusing specifically on the past 57 years of the occupation, beginning in 1967, with an unprecedented 52 nations, including the United States and Russia, expected to present evidence.