The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said that Israel is obliged to ease the passage of aid into Gaza, stressing it had to provide Palestinians with "basic needs" essential to survival.
The wide-ranging ICJ ruling came as aid groups are scrambling to scale up much-needed humanitarian assistance for the territory, seizing upon a fragile ceasefire agreed earlier this month.
The ICJ's advisory opinion is not legally binding but the court believes it carries "great legal weight and moral authority".
Court President Yuji Iwasawa said that Israel was "under an obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities".
That included UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which the country has banned after accusing some of its staff of taking part in the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 that sparked the war.
The ICJ ruled that Israel had not substantiated those allegations.
Israel did not take part in the proceedings but an official told journalists before the hearing that it was "an abuse of international law".
The official added that the country "cooperates with international organisations, with other UN agencies regarding Gaza. But Israel will not cooperate with UNRWA".
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Mr Iwasawa said the ICJ "rejects the argument that the request abuses and weaponises the international judicial process".
On the eve of the ICJ ruling, Middle East spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) Abeer Etefa said that 530 of the organisation's trucks had crossed into Gaza since the ceasefire.
They had delivered more than 6,700 tonnes of food, which she said was "enough for close to half a million people for two weeks".
Ms Etefa said that around 750 tonnes a day were coming through. The figure is more than before the truce, but remains well below WFP's target of around 2,000 tonnes daily.
The ICJ said that Israel, as an occupying power, was under an obligation "to ensure the basic needs of the local population, including the supplies essential for their survival".
At the same time, it was "also under a negative obligation not to impede the provision of these supplies", the court said.
The ICJ also recalled the obligation under international law not to use starvation as a method of warfare.
The United Nations had asked the ICJ to clarify Israel's obligations, as an occupying power, towards UN and other bodies "including to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival" of Palestinians.
Judges heard a week of evidence in April from dozens of nations and organisations, much of which revolved around the status of UNRWA.
At the hearings, a US official raised "serious concerns" about the agency's impartiality, and alleged that Hamas used its facilities.
The US official, Josh Simmons, said that Israel had "no obligation to permit UNRWA specifically to provide humanitarian assistance".
He added that the agency was not the only option for delivering aid into Gaza.
However, the ICJ noted that UNRWA "cannot be replaced on short notice without a proper transition plan".
Palestinian official Ammar Hijazi told the judges that Israel was blocking aid as a "weapon of war", sparking starvation in Gaza.
This case is separate from the others Israel faces under international law over its campaign in Gaza.
In July 2024, the ICJ issued another advisory opinion stating that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful" and must end as soon as possible.
Judges are also weighing accusations, brought by South Africa, that Israel has broken the 1948 UN Genocide Convention with its actions in Gaza.
Another court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court, has issued arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It also approved a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was killed in an airstrike.
Rubio latest US official to travel to Israel
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will arrive in Israel tomorrow, an Israeli government spokesperson said, announcing the third visit by a senior Washington official this week.
Speaking while Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff are already in the country promoting the plan to end the war in Gaza, Shosh Bedrosian told reporters that Mr Rubio would meet Mr Netanyahu on Friday.
"This is the secretary of state's third trip to Israel since mid-September which further shows the hand-in-hand relationship that Israel and the United States have as we mark this historic time," she added.
Earlier, Mr Vance said that the Gaza ceasefire agreement could pave the way for broader alliances for Israel in the Middle East.
"I think this Gaza deal is a critical piece of unlocking the Abraham Accords," he said, referring to the series of normalisation agreements between Israel and several Arab countries in 2020.
"But what it could allow is an alliance structure in the Middle East that perseveres, that endures, and that allows the good people in this region, the world, to step up and take ownership of their own backyard."
However, Mr Vance cautioned that there were challenges in terms of disarming Hamas and rebuilding Gaza.
"We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people of Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel," he said during a joint news conference with Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
