Israel does not have the right to defend itself, Russia's representative to the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies are hypocritical for talking "about Israel's alleged right for self-defense, which, as an occupying state, it does not have, as was confirmed by the [U.N.'s] International Court [of Justice] consultative ruling in 2004," Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told a U.N. General Assembly special session on the Israel-Hamas war.

Israel declared war on Hamas after thousands of terrorists from Gaza stormed across the border on Oct. 7, murdering at least 1,400 persons, wounding more than 5,000 others and taking more than 200 captives back to Gaza. The atrocities included rapes, beheadings, burnings, mutilation, torture and desecration of corpses.

The ICJ's 2004 advisory opinion stated that Israel could not invoke an inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter against any threat coming from an "occupied" territory that Israel controls.

However, Israel ceded control of the Gaza Strip in 2005, and it is governed by the Hamas terrorist organization, which has sworn to destroy Israel.

Last week, Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Hamas and calling for "humanitarian pauses" in the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza.

A Russian resolution was also rejected that denounced Hamas but also condemned "indiscriminate attacks" on civilians in Gaza and called for an immediate "humanitarian cease-fire."

It was the second Russian resolution on the Israel-Hamas war that was rejected.

Republished with permission from Jewish News Syndicate.