Palestinian diplomat accuses Israel of apartheid and asks UN court to declare its occupation illegal [Video]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Palestinian foreign minister on Monday accused Israel of apartheid and urged the United Nations’ top court to declare that Israel’s occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally for any hope for a two-state future to survive.

The remarks came at historic hearings into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation. The case opened against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which immediately became a focal point of the day – even though the hearings were meant to center on Israel’s open-ended control over the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and annexed east Jerusalem.

Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the International Court of Justice that “2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of them children, are besieged and bombed, killed and maimed, starved and displaced.”

“More than 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including in …