UNITED NATIONS — In a deeply critical and legally uncompromising briefing before the United Nations Security Council on Monday, prominent international legal experts and grassroots human rights observers delivered a scathing assessment of the ongoing crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories. The speakers directly challenged the global diplomatic status quo, asserting that the primary obstacle preventing a definitive termination of Israel’s unlawful occupation is not a deficiency or ambiguity in international jurisprudence, but rather a profound, calculated lack of political will among global superpowers to enforce existing frameworks.
Addressing the fifteen-member council, Itay Epshtain, the special advisor on international law and humanitarian principles at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), dismantled the conventional diplomatic narrative that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires entirely new legal or diplomatic formulations. Epshtain argued forcefully that the prolonged annexation of Palestinian land persists simply because the international community has chosen to make it politically and economically tolerable for the occupying power.
“The obstacle is not a lack of law. The obstacle is political reluctance. Annexation persists because it could remain tolerable to those who sustain it,” Epshtain stated directly to the chamber.
The international law expert emphasized that the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements within occupied Palestine constitutes a flagrant, undeniable violation of established international law. He warned the Security Council that it cannot use subsequent, watered-down resolutions to dilute or bargain away fundamental obligations that are deeply grounded in peremptory norms of general international law. Invoking an ancient and foundational maxim of jurisprudence, Epshtain reminded the diplomats that from a wrong, no legal right can ever emerge, and that no passage of time, regardless of how many decades pass, can ever cure or legitimize a fundamental illegality.
Epshtain addressed the widespread political argument that the extensive infrastructure of the settlements has rendered the occupation a permanent, unchangeable reality on the ground. While he conceded that decades of unchecked structural growth have undoubtedly made annexation far more financially costly to reverse and logistically complex to dismantle, he clarified that it has absolutely not become irreversible as a matter of law.
Turning his analytical attention to the escalating wave of violence perpetrated against Palestinian communities, the NRC advisor launched a sharp critique against the diplomatic terminology frequently deployed within the United Nations itself. He argued that describing these acts as mere "extremism" is a dangerous form of linguistic minimization.
“It is often described, including in this chamber, as extremism, as though it were a marginal deviation from state policy. That language is legally inadequate,” Epshtain explained.
He clarified that when armed actors operate either as an integral component or an auxiliary extension of state military forces, the situation transitions from isolated criminal acts to a direct matter of state responsibility under international law. Consequently, Epshtain reminded the assembly that third-party states have a strict legal obligation to ensure their own foreign policies, trade agreements, and diplomatic conduct do not recognize, aid, or assist in maintaining this unlawful situation. He demanded full restitution as the non-negotiable first step toward justice, stating explicitly that homes, agricultural orchards, and ancient olive groves must be completely restored to their rightful Palestinian owners, and that the settlements and their associated security infrastructure must be systematically dismantled.
“We are not asking this council to invent a new law. We are asking it to apply the law it has already affirmed,” Epshtain concluded.
The legal testimony was powerfully complemented by a raw, first-hand briefing from Palestinian journalist and researcher Mariam Barghouti. Speaking directly on the operational realities within the West Bank, Barghouti testified that the Israeli government has progressed past the point of merely tolerating violence against Palestinian civilians; it is now actively, structurally encouraging it through state media apparatuses and legislative frameworks.
Barghouti explained that parts of the domestic Hebrew media have become explicitly complicit in inciting violent actions against Palestinian individuals and rural communities. More dangerously, she noted that this atmospheric hostility has been formally codified into law by the Israeli parliament in recent years. She pointed to a series of aggressive legislative steps, including bills designed to implement the death penalty for political offenses, laws facilitating the rapid absorption of West Bank territory into state-controlled land, and state-sanctioned programs aimed at directly arming ordinary citizens with military-grade weapons.
According to Barghouti, this state-sponsored militarization includes distributing automatic and semi-automatic firearms alongside advanced surveillance and combat drones to civilian populations in the West Bank. She raised a major alarm over international complicity, revealing that United States-based charities are actively fundraising and exploiting legal loopholes to ship these military-grade weapons directly to radical groups within the territory.
The cumulative impact of these systemic actions, Barghouti warned, has drained the Palestinian population physically, psychologically, economically, and politically, reducing daily life to a state of permanent existential terror. She noted that even members of the international press corps are no longer safe, explaining that wearing standard blue press insignia now functions as a target that places reporters directly in the line of danger, rather than serving as a shield of journalistic protection.
The twin briefings leave the UN Security Council facing intense pressure to move past symbolic rhetoric and enact concrete enforcement mechanisms, as observers warn that the credibility of the international legal order is hanging in the balance.
