IN Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion No. 2025/48 of 22 October 2025) (the “2025 Opinion”), the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) affirmed that international humanitarian law (“IHL”) requires Israel, as occupying Power in the occupied Palestinian territory (“OPT”), to ensure that the Palestinian population has the essential supplies of daily life (unanimous); to cooperate in good faith with the United Nations (10-1); and to facilitate and not to impede relief schemes provided by them or by other international organisations and states (10-1). The Court rejected Israel’s allegations of illegality and lack of impartiality against the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (“UNRWA”) (at [114]), including that its employees were affiliated with Hamas, emphasising that the agency provides essential humanitarian relief in Gaza and supports the right of Palestinians to self-determination. Israel must respect the privileges and immunities of the UN, its agencies and members, including the inviolability of its premises during armed conflict (10-1). Israel is also prohibited from using starvation as a method of warfare, must respect and protect all relief and medical personnel and facilities, and is prohibited from forcibly transferring or deporting Palestinians in and from the OPT (at [139]). Israel must “respect, protect and fulfil” the human rights of the Palestinian population and must, in particular, uphold the right of protected persons from Palestine in Israel to be visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross (“ICRC”) (10-1). Where the Court was not unanimous, it was Vice President Sebutinde who voted against. Several separate concurring opinions and declarations were appended. Judge Gómez Robledo delivered a partially dissenting opinion.

That the advisory proceedings were ever necessary, especially given the Court’s advisory opinion on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (Advisory Opinion No. 2024/57 of 19 July 2024) (“the 2024 Opinion”) (noted [2025] C.L.J. 1) on the illegality of the occupation and the ongoing case against Israel under the Genocide Convention, is remarkable. Although much of the 2025 Opinion affirms established international obligations, aspects of it are notable, particularly for their studied ambiguity or for judicial disagreement. First, while the Court appeared to confirm (as it did in its 2024 Opinion) that Gaza is occupied – noting that Israel’s obligations under the law of occupation have “increased significantly” since 7 October 2023, in line with a significant increase in effective control of the territory, recalling that the law of occupation applies alongside other rules of IHL and International Human Rights Law (“IHRL”) and referring to Israel generally as “the occupying” Power – it does not explicitly say as much. As Judge Robledo observed, the Court “appears to convey a desire to avoid expressly concluding that the Gaza Strip is now under full-scale occupation”, which is regrettable, since “a more explicit assertation […] would have reinforced the Court’s [2024] findings on Israel’s obligations in Gaza” (Robledo, at [3]–[6]).

Second, unlike in its 2024 Opinion, the Court concluded that it had not been asked to advise on the legal consequences of any breach of Israel’s obligations under the law of state responsibility (at [77]–[78]). Although this is a reasonable interpretation of the questions asked – and there is often utility in identifying applicable obligations and leaving it to others to apply them – it seems counterintuitive given the reasons the 2025 Opinion was sought in the first place and that, months after the hearing, the Court asked the UN, Israel and Palestine for “explanations on the situation [in Gaza] since 7 May 2025”. The request for explanations also highlights the surprisingly long time that it took the Court to respond to what was an urgent request by the General Assembly, made in December 2024 but only answered in October 2025. Asking for explanations no doubt delayed the 2025 Opinion and appears to have been necessary precisely because the factual situation was rapidly developing. Nevertheless, in the 2025 Opinion, the Court went beyond merely identifying obligations in concluding that, in light of its obligations under IHL and IHRL, Israel’s conduct raises “serious concerns” (at [162]) and in considering the applicability of these obligations to the facts on the ground. Further, while the Court indicated that certain IHL obligations would allow the occupying Power to take considerations of security/military necessity into account, it was clear that “the protection of security interests is not a free-standing exception […] [to] otherwise applicable rules of [IHL]”; any limit on an obligation must be grounded in a specific rule and considered in good faith (at [89]); and an occupying Power “may never invoke reasons of security to justify the general suspension of all humanitarian services in an occupied territory” (at [100]). This reflects – and amplifies – the Court’s 2024 Opinion rejecting security considerations as an independent limitation on or justification for breaches of international law by Israel in the OPT.

Third, the Court’s answer to the question of the scope of Article 2(5) of the UN Charter – perhaps the most charged aspect of the 2025 Opinion – is a fudge. The provision states that “[a]ll Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter”. According to the Court, this duty “must be read together with the provisions of the Charter relating to the powers of various organs of the United Nations” (at [173]), but, as Judge Charlesworth pointed out in her Separate Opinion, it is unclear what this means in practice (Charlesworth, at [4]). The Court noted that Israel is not entitled to exercise sovereignty over any part of the OPT, but “[it] continues to exercise sovereign powers in East Jerusalem” and its enactment and enforcement of laws that terminated Israel’s cooperation with UNRWA “directly resulted in obstructions to the operations of UNRWA in and in relation to the [OPT], in particular in the Gaza Strip” (at [176]). Given UNRWA’s crucial role on the ground, Israel cannot decide unilaterally to withhold its cooperation with the UN (at [177]–[179]). The presence and activities of the UN are “subject to the consent of Israel”, but since it cannot exercise sovereignty over the OPT, “it is not entitled to decide unilaterally, with respect to the presence and activities of the [UN] in and in relation to the [OPT], in the same way as in its own territory” (at [184]).

Where exactly does that leave us? Israel’s duty to cooperate appears to be related specifically to the facts on the ground – the occupation, the critical role of UNRWA – and to the fact that it is not permitted to exercise sovereignty over the OPT. Yet the Court does not flesh out what this duty to cooperate really means in practice: where does it leave access to UNRWA’s offices in East Jerusalem? Is there an obligation to allow access through Israel, if not under Article 2(5)? Why should Israel’s consent be relevant, as an Occupying Power responsible for an unlawful occupation? As Judge Tladi noted in his declaration, “any suggestion that, as a matter of law, Israel has the right to make such determinations would have the effect of providing normative legitimacy to an unlawful factual situation and thus a recognition as lawful of a situation that the Cout has deemed unlawful” (Tladi, at [6]). In the end, the reality is that UNRWA is de facto subject to Israel’s consent in the OPT, even if not de lege, and to Israel’s control in Israel itself, subject to privileges and immunities, and whatever the duty to cooperate requires.

Individual judicial opinions reveal sharp disagreement over the scope of Article 2(5), and anxiety over whether a general duty to cooperate with the UN would be tantamount to determining that UN General Assembly (“UNGA”) resolutions are binding (a question debated in the 1960s, when states in the Global North largely opposed this) (see especially the Joint declaration of Judges Abraham and Cleveland, at [6], [11]). In a partially dissenting opinion, Judge Robledo lamented the Court’s “timid and excessively formalist” approach, which “fail[s] to specify that this duty of co-operation also entails, under certain circumstances, the obligation to lend assistance to the General Assembly in any action undertaken by it” (Robledo, at [7], emphasis in original). For him, the General Assembly “embodies the will of the international community as a whole […] [despite its limitations, the UN] synthesizes the civitas maxima ideal, the ultimate source of international law” (at [8], emphasis in original). For Judge Charlesworth, the earlier Reparation for Injuries Advisory Opinion, Advisory Opinion of 11 April 1944, and suggested that Article 2(5) “potentially [goes] beyond the four corners of the Charter” – that is, beyond only a requirement to comply with UN Security Council (“UNSC”) resolutions (Charlesworth, at [5]) and in her view, an obligation to “give every assistance” is different to an obligation to comply (at [6]). Also rejecting a narrow interpretation, Judge Xue considered Article 2(5) to be a general obligation that “must be read in conjunction with other provisions of the Charter for the attainment of the purposes of the Organization” (Xue, at [13]) and that Israel has “no right, as an occupying Power, to unilaterally put an end to the presence and activities of the United Nations in the occupied territory” (at [20]). The duty to cooperate must be more than a duty to comply with UNSC resolutions (otherwise, what would be the point of Article 25 of the UN Charter?), even if state practice suggests that it does not generally operate to render UNGA resolutions binding.

Fourth, in discussing the inviolability of UN premises, the Court held that “it is for the United Nations to determine whether a particular facility remains the premises of [the UN]” (in the face, for example, of allegations that it had been taken over by Hamas) and that this presumption “may only be set aside for the most compelling reasons” (2025 Opinion, at [196]) – but gave little indication of what would amount to a “compelling reason”.

Finally, some aspects of the Court’s handling of the sources of international law are noteworthy. Citation of the ICRC’s Customary International Law database of state practice (produced by an NGO-led academic team); suggestions that several major human rights treaties reflect customary international law (at [150]); and references to the opinions of treaty bodies (at [154]–[155]) all suggest a cautious, but ultimately more expansive, engagement with the material sources of international law. At the same time, the Court does not make good fully on its advice in its 2024 Opinion and avoids engaging with its own Orders in the case against Israel under the Genocide Convention (cf. Robledo, at [16]–[17]).

Although ambiguities remain, and the precise scope of the duty to cooperate with the UN was not resolved, the 2025 Opinion nevertheless developed important underlying principles and functions of the laws in this area and underscored the need for states to carry out obligations in good faith and to cooperate with the UN and its agencies and members in so doing. Despite this, Israel has subsequently taken steps which violate UNRWA’s immunities and ban major aid organisations from operating in the Gaza Strip, whose population remains desperately vulnerable.