 The Arab League has taken a significant stance for the first time since the Gaza crisis began, choosing to align itself with truth in the ongoing conflict. Its collective efforts are now directed towards opposing the occupation authorities and expediting the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state. Recent actions documented by our teams include unilateral aid delivery, diplomatic advocacy for the Palestinian political system and outright condemnation of occupation actions. Particularly noteworthy in this update is the League's legal defence against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and its covert operations dating back to the 1940s aimed at thwarting the realisation of a Palestinian state. This marked a powerful moment in global discourse, characterised by a candid acknowledgement of truths and a firm denouncement of Israeli exceptionalism in the Middle East and Europe. Our commitment remains steadfast in delivering objective news and impartial geopolitical analysis. We urge you to engage with our content by liking and sharing this video to stay informed. Subscribe to receive timely updates on Palestine related developments. Palestinian people have been denied the exercise of their legal right to self-determination through the more than century-long, violent, colonial, racist effort to establish a nation state exclusively for the Jewish people in the land of Mandatory Palestine. When this began after the First World War, the Jewish population of that land was 11%. Forcibly implementing Zionism in this demographic context has necessarily involved the extermination or forced displacement of some of the non-Jewish Palestinian population, the exercise of domination over and subjugation, dispossession and immiseration of remaining non-Jewish Palestinians, the emigration to that land of Jewish people, regardless of any direct personal link, and the denial of Palestinian refugees the right to return, all operating through a racist distinction privileging Jewish people over non-Jewish Palestinian people. This has necessitated serious violations of all the fundamental Yos Kogan's and Urga Omne's norms of international law, the right of self-determination, the prohibitions on aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity, racial discrimination, apartheid and torture, and the core protections of IHL. Today I will address, first, violations of international law arising out of the regime of racial domination, apartheid, perpetrated against the Palestinian people across the entire land of historic Palestine. And then, second, the existential illegality of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. As a necessary prerequisite, I must begin with this special right granted to the Palestinian people in the League Covenant. The legal rights of self-determination of the Palestinian people originates in the sacred trust obligations of Article 22 of the League Covenant, part of the Versailles Treaty. Palestine, an A-class mandate under British colonial rule, was, after the First World War, supposed to have its existence as an independent state provisionally recognised, a sui-generous right of self-determination. The UK and other members of the League Council attempted to bypass this, incorporating the 1917 Balfour Declaration commitment to establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine into the instrument, stipulating how the mandate would operate. However, the Council had no legal power to bypass the Covenant in this way. It acted ultra-virus, and the relevant provisions were legally void. There was and is no legal basis in that mandate instrument for either a specifically Jewish state in Palestine or the UK's failure to discharge the sacred trust obligation to implement Palestinian self-determination. After the Second World War, a self-determination right applicable to colonial peoples generally crystallised in international law. For the Palestinian people, this essentially corresponded to and supplemented the pre-existing Covenant right regarding the same single territory. The 1947 proposal to partition Palestine was contrary to this, the Arab rejection and affirmation of the legal status quo. In 1948 then, Palestine was, legally, a single territory with a single population, enjoying a right of self-determination on a unitary basis. Despite this, a state of Israel specifically for Jewish people was proclaimed in 1948 by those controlling 78% more than three-quarters of Palestine, accompanied by the false displacement of a significant number of the non-Jewish Palestinian population, the Nakba catastrophe. This illegal secession was an egregious violation of Palestinian self-determination. Israel's statehood was recognised and Israel admitted as a UN member despite this illegality. Israel is not the legal continuation or successor of the mandate. This violation of Palestinian self-determination is ongoing and unresolved. Two key elements are, first, Palestinian people not displaced from the land proclaimed to be of Israel in 1948 and their descendants have been forced to live as citizens, presently they constitute 17.2%. Of a state conceived to be of and for another racial group, under the domination of that group, necessarily treated as second class because of their race. Second, Palestinian people displaced from that land and their descendants cannot return. These are serious breaches of the right of self-determination, the prohibitions of racial discrimination and apartheid, and the right of return. They must end immediately. As if this ongoing Nakba was not catastrophic enough, in 1967 Israel captured the remaining 22% of historic Palestine, the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Naxar. It's maintained that use of force to remain in control for the 57-year period since. For more than half a century then, a state defined to be of and for Jewish people exclusively has governed the entire land of historic Palestine and the Palestinian people there. And the regime of racial domination, apartheid, and denying return has been extended throughout. In the case of Palestinians living in the occupied territory, this has involved the same serious violations of international law supplemented by serious violations of norms applicable in occupied territory. Indeed, these people are subject to an even more extreme form of racist domination. What continues to perplex rational minds amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the world's silence in the face of blatant aggression by occupation forces in Palestine. It appears as though the world is held captive by the occupation, rendering it virtually impotent to respond decisively to the ongoing crisis which has stubbornly resisted any viable resolution. The existence of the United Nations coupled with its persistent inability to foster lasting peace in the region is raising doubts about its efficacy. There is an inherent ailment afflicting the organization reminiscent of its predecessor, the League of Nations, which may lead to its dissolution if it continues to echo the sentiments of a toothless entity. The organization has failed to deliver enduring solutions to global crises, often offering half-baked measures that lack enforceability, allowing powerful nations or those with significant influence to manipulate and even flout its principles. This was evident in the cases of Iraq, Syria and Libya. While it purports to possess the means to address threats to world peace, it often remains inert, yielding to the dictates of powers like the West in shaping the so-called rule-based international order. Could the cries for adherence to this international order also reverberate across Palestine, compelling the occupation to abide by international law and peacefully end its colonialist grip on historic Palestine? The impassioned plea articulated by this spokesperson underscores a silent world's complicity in colonial aggression. It's a stark reminder that the specter of slavery which we thought had been eradicated persists in the occupation of Palestine. The illegality of the exercise of authority itself. The enduring Palestinian right of self-determination means that the Palestinian people and the state of Palestine, not Israel, are sovereign over the territory Israel captured in 67. For Israel, the land is extraterritorial and, given what I said about the mandate, territory over which it has no legal sovereign entitlement. Despite this, Israel has purported to annex East Jerusalem and taken various actions there and in the rest of the West Bank, constituting de Ure and de facto purported annexation, including implanting settlements. It is Israeli policy that Israel should be not only the exclusive authority over the entire land between the river and the sea, but also the exclusive sovereign authority there. This constitutes a complete repudiation of Palestinian self-determination as a legal right, since it empties the right entirely of any territorial content. Actualizing this through de facto and de Ure purported annexation is, first, a serious violation of Palestinian self-determination and, second, because it's enabled through the use of force, a violation of the prohibition on the purported acquisition of territory through the use of force in the law on the use of force, and so an aggression. Serious violations of further areas of law regulating the conduct of the occupation are also being perpetrated, notably the prohibitions on implanting settlements and altering, unless absolutely prevented, the legal, political, social and religious status quo. The occupation is therefore existentially illegal because of its use to actualize purported annexation. To end this serious illegality it must be terminated, Israel must renounce all sovereignty claims and all settlements must be removed immediately. However, this is not the only basis on which the occupation's existential legality must be addressed. We need to delve deeper into both the law of self-determination and the law on the use of force. Beginning with self-determination, this right, when applied to the Palestinian people in the territory Israel captured in 67, is a right to be entirely self-governing, free from Israeli domination. Consequently, the Palestinian people have a legal right to the immediate end of the occupation. And Israel has a correlative legal duty to immediately terminate the occupation. This right exists and operates simply and exclusively because the Palestinian people are entitled to it. It does not depend on others agreeing to its realization. It is a right. It is a repudiation of trusteeship whereby colonial peoples were ostensibly to be granted freedom only if and when they were deemed ready because of their stage of development determined by the racist standard of civilization. The anti-colonial self-determination rule replaced this with a right based on the automatic immediate entitlement of all people to freedom without preconditions. In the words of General Assembly 1514, inadequacy of preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence. Some suggest that the Palestinian people were offered and rejected deals that could have ended the occupation, and therefore Israel can maintain it pending a settlement. Even assuming, arguing the veracity of this account, the deals involved a further loss of the sovereign territory of the Palestinian people. Israel cannot lawfully demand concessions on Palestinian rights as the price for ending its impediment to Palestinian freedom. This would mean Israel using force to coerce the Palestinian people to give up some of their peremptory legal rights, illegal in the law on the use of force, and necessarily voiding the relevant terms of any agreement reached. The Palestinian people are legally entitled to reject a further loss of land over which they have an exclusive legal peremptory right. Any such rejection makes no difference to Israel's immediate legal obligation to end the occupation. Turning to the law on the use of force, Israel's control over the Palestinian territory since 67 as a military occupation is an ongoing use of force. As such, its existential legality is determined by the law on the use of force as a general matter beyond the specific issue of annexation. Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank from Egypt and Jordan in the war it launched against them and Syria. It claimed to be acting in self-defense, anticipating a non-immediately imminent attack. The war was over after six days. Peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan were subsequently adopted. Despite this, Israel maintained control of the territory, continuing the use of force enabling its capture. Israel's 67 war was illegal in the Yossad Bellum. Even assuming, arguing its claim of a feared attack, states can't lawfully use force in non-immediately imminent anticipatory self-defense. Alternatively, assuming again arguing that the war was lawful, the justification ended after six days. However, the Yossad Bellum requirements continued to apply to the occupation as itself a continuing use of force. In 1967, with self-determination well established in international law, states could not lawfully use force to retain control over a self-determination unit captured in war unless the legal test, justifying the initial use of force, also justified on the same basis the use of force in retaining control. Moreover, this justification would need to continue not only in the immediate aftermath, but for more than half a century. Manifestly, this legal test has not been met. Israel's exercise of control over the Gaza Strip and West Bank, through the use of force, has been illegal in the Yossad Bellum since the capture of the territory. The addition of this comprehensive legal context is highly valuable, shedding light on the deliberate erasure of history in the struggle for the soul of the Palestinian state. The occupying state has employed various tactics, including the manipulation of scriptures to assert direct ownership of the land of historic Palestine while undermining the laws of modern governance which should rightfully take precedence over any historical narratives. If every nation and tongue were to lay claim to the lands of their forefathers, chaos would ensue. The fact that indigenous peoples were already inhabiting the land of Palestine before the arrival of European migrants serves as a clear indication that the land belongs to a specific people and the rights of these indigenous people must be respected. We are deeply impressed by the compelling case made by this lawyer for an end to the occupation in Palestine. This is a narrative that the world can never forget. Israel cannot lawfully use force to control the Palestinian territory for security purposes, pending an agreement providing security guarantees. States can only lawfully use force outside their borders in extremely narrow circumstances. Beyond that, they must address security concerns non-forcibly. The USA, UK and Zambia suggested here that there is a sui generis applicable legal framework, an Israeli-Palestinian lex specialis. This somehow supersedes the rules of international law determining whether the occupation is existentially lawful. Instead, we have a new rule, justifying the occupation until there is a peace agreement meeting Israeli security needs. This is the law as these states would like it to be, not the law as it is. It has no basis in Resolution 242, Oslo or any other resolutions or agreements. Actually, you are being invited to do away with the very operation of some of the fundamental peremptory rules of international law itself. As a result, the matters these rules conceive as rights vested in the Palestinian people would be realized only if agreement is reached and only on the basis of such agreement. At best, if there is an agreement, this means one that need not be compatible with Palestinian peremptory legal rights, determined only by the acute power imbalance in Israel's favor. At worst, if there is no agreement, this means that the indefinite continuation of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people in the OPT on the basis of racist supremacy and acclaim to sovereignty would be lawful. This is an affront to the international rule of law, to the UN charter imperative to settle disputes in conformity with international law, and to your judicial function as guardians of the international legal system. A final potential basis sometimes invoked to justify continuing the occupation should be addressed. Occupation and human rights law, applicable to illegal and lawful occupations alike, oblige Israel to address security threats in occupied territory. However, they only regulate the conduct of an occupation when it exists. They don't also provide a legal basis for that existence itself. Existential legality is determined by the law of self-determination and the Yos-Ad-Bellum only. There is no backdoor legal basis for Israel to maintain the occupation through the imperatives of occupation and human rights law. In some, the occupation of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is existentially illegal on two mutually reinforcing bases. First, the law on the use of force. Here the occupation is illegal, both as a use of force without valid justification, and because it's enabling an illegal purported annexation. As such, it is an aggression. Second, the law of self-determination. Here it's illegal again because of the association with illegal purported annexation, and also more generally because it is quite simply an exercise of authority over the Palestinian people that by its very nature violates their right to freedom. This multifaceted existential illegality involving serious violations of peremptory norms has two key consequences. First, the occupation must end. Israel must renounce its claim to sovereignty over the Palestinian territory. All settlers must be removed immediately. This is required to end the illegality, to discharge the positive obligation to enable immediate Palestinian self-administration, and because Israel lacks any legal entitlement to exercise authority. Second, in the absence of the occupation ending, necessarily everything Israel does in the Palestinian territory lacks a valid international legal basis, and is therefore, subject to the Namibia exception, invalid. Not only those things violating the law regulating the conduct of the occupation. Those norms entitle and require Israel to do certain things, but this doesn't alter the more fundamental position from the law on the use of force and self-determination, that Israel lacks any valid authority to do anything, and whatever it does is illegal, even if compliant with, or pursuant to, the conduct regulatory rules. I will close by quoting Palestinian academic and poet Rafat Alariyah from his final poem posted 36 days before he was killed by Israel in Gaza on the 6th of December 2023. If I must die, you must live to tell my story. If I must die, let it bring hope. Let it be a story. There is perhaps no stronger argument than to make the West understand that its tacit support for the ongoing war against Palestinians has tarnished its democratic reputation as a global exemplar. Each day that Palestinians remain without a state of their own, enduring constant bombardment by the occupation, exposes the true nature of an empire built on deceit and subterfuge. It is an empire that espouses equality and human rights only when its own interests are at stake, a hypocritical stance that has been laid bare before the international community. Just as it boldly condemns the brutality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a peaceful democracy in Europe, it should also have the courage to denounce the arrogance of the occupation in Palestine, and demand a more civilized approach that allows Palestine to attain freedom. Indeed, this presentation stands out as exemplary and warrants sharing. Thank you for your attention. Please consider sharing and liking this news update with your loved ones. Don't forget to subscribe for the latest developments from Palestine. Until our next update, peace.