A military occupation, in international law, is a temporary state of affairs governed by the laws of war, specifically the 1907 Hague Regulations and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. As defined in Article 42 of the Hague Regulations, a territory is considered occupied "when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army." The fundamental principle of a lawful occupation is that it is temporary and does not grant the occupying power sovereignty over the territory. The occupying power is a custodian, obligated to administer the territory for the benefit of the local populace, protect their rights, and refrain from changing the demographic or legal status of the land.
An occupation becomes illegal when it violates these foundational principles or is a result of an illegal act of aggression. International legal consensus, supported by numerous UN resolutions and recent advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), holds that the long-term nature of Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories, which has now lasted for decades, and its associated policies have transformed it into an illegal occupation. Key violations cited include the transfer of its own civilian population into the occupied territory (settlements), the exploitation of natural resources, and measures that systematically alter the demographic composition of the land. These actions are seen as a form of de facto annexation, a practice strictly prohibited under international law.
A critical pillar of international law, enshrined in the UN Charter, is the right to self-determination. This is the right of a people to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development without external interference. The UN General Assembly's 1960 "Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" further affirmed that alien subjugation and foreign occupation constitute a denial of fundamental human rights. In the context of a military occupation, the right to self-determination for the occupied people remains inalienable. Conversely, an occupying power, which does not hold sovereignty over the territory, cannot claim a right to self-determination within that occupied land. The purpose of occupation is to maintain order until a political solution is reached, not to establish a new sovereign entity or displace the existing population.
The ICJ and other international bodies have consistently found that Israel's policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have violated the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The establishment and expansion of settlements, the construction of the separation barrier, and the fragmentation of Palestinian lands are all seen as direct impediments to the creation of a contiguous and viable state. By contrast, Israel's government has argued that the territories are not "occupied" but rather "disputed," and that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply. This position, however, has been overwhelmingly rejected by the international community. Therefore, under the framework of international law, the occupying power has no right to alter the territory's status or to use its control as a means of establishing its own claims to the land, as this would violate the core principles of occupation and the fundamental right to self-determination of the occupied populace.