Nawaf Salam, president of the International Court of Justice, was appointed as prime minister of Lebanon

Lebanon's new president Joseph Aoun on Monday appointed Nawaf Salam, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as the new prime minister of Lebanon after he won majority support in a parliamentary vote.

Salam, who previously served as Lebanon's representative to the UN and enjoys support from Saudi Arabia and Western nations, will now be tasked with forming a new government.

Aoun, a former head of the Lebanese Army, was sworn into the presidency last Thursday, ending a presidential vacuum of more than two years.

Salam, who defeated interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati, received 84 votes out of 128 in Parliament, while his rival received nine and the rest of the lawmakers abstained from voting.

The prime minister-designate secured the backing of political forces opposed to the terrorist group Hezbollah, which holds 15 seats in Parliament, as Salam has consistently criticized the organization.

Salam's anti-Israel obsession as ICJ president

Judge Salam, who will step down from the ICJ in order to take up the position of prime minister, has handled some 200 cases brought against Israel during his tenure, ruling against the Jewish state in all of them.

Among his decisions, a few months ago he ruled that Israel's anti-terrorism policies in the West Bank constitute a policy of "apartheid" and ordered its withdrawal from those territories by the end of 2024. However, he refused to condemn human rights violations in countries such as Iran and Syria.

The election of a Sunni judge as Lebanon's prime minister comes as a disappointment to Hezbollah. Although Salam has a strong anti-Israeli stance, he is also an opponent of Hezbollah, a Shiite terrorist organization that is an enemy of the Jewish state.