Summary of the day
Israel and Hamas appear to be inching closer to a phased ceasefire agreement, officials said on Monday, though nothing has been publicly agreed to yet. Qatar, which is mediating between the two parties, has handed both sides a “final”’ draft of a ceasefire and hostage release agreement, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. A breakthrough was reached in Doha after talks between Israel’s spy chiefs, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy and Qatar’s prime minister, the official added. The Biden administration sees a possible Gaza agreement as soon as this week, the White House national security adviser told Bloomberg News. The remaining sticking points reportedly include which hostages and prisoners will be freed, as well as Hamas’ demand that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor. Hamas insists that any negotiations to secure the release of hostages must form part of a comprehensive pact to end Israel’s assault on Gaza, while Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking a more segmented agreement (you can read more about the state of the negotiations here). The Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, denounced the agreement being worked on as a “surrender” deal.
An Israeli lawyer has filed submissions to the international criminal court (ICC) alleging incitement to genocide against Palestinians by eight Israeli officials, including President Isaac Herzog and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, said at least five people were killed in the bombing of the Salah al-Din school in Gaza City, which was housing displaced Palestinian people.
At least 46,584 Palestinian people have been killed and 109,731 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in its latest update. At least 19 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry said.
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Updated
New submissions on incitement to genocide filed to international criminal court
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent
An Israeli lawyer has filed submissions to the international criminal court (ICC) alleging incitement to genocide against Palestinians by eight Israeli officials, including President Isaac Herzog and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The lawyer, Omer Shatz, who is also a counsel to the ICC, says that it is the first time where a case for incitement to genocide has been framed as a crime that can be independently prosecuted irrespective of whether genocide or intent to commit genocide has been proven.
A 170-page submission, which he says took a year to prepare with students at the International Law In Action clinic at Sciences Po in Paris, where he is a lecturer, accuses the eight, who also include the former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, of having “publicly and directly incited others to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”.
The ICC has already issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. However, despite receiving submissions on alleged genocide – commonly acknowledged to be the hardest offence to prove under international criminal law – it was not investigated by the court’s prosecutor.
The new submissions say: “Unlike all other ICC crimes and modes of liability, this inchoate crime (incitement to genocide) can and indeed must be independently investigated and prosecuted, regardless of whether genocide has been committed or not.”
Shatz added: “There were (in the past) cases of incitement to genocide in the case law, in Rwanda and so on but it was always attached to the genocide and this is the first time saying, irrespective of whether you believe it is or it is not (genocide), you can go ahead with incitement.”
Statements cited as evidence include Gallant saying here would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel” in Gaza, Herzog saying “an entire nation … is responsible” and Netanyahu invoking the biblical story of Amalek, in which it is said “spare no one, but kill alike men and women.”
The submissions, filed on behalf of an anonymous Palestinian, also say the ICC should act given the interim findings of the international court of justice (ICJ) which said Israel must “punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide” and which they say Israel has failed to do. They say that in November last year the legal adviser to the Israeli government informed the country’s supreme court of their decision not to open a single criminal investigation on the matter, which means the onus falls on the ICC to prosecute.
The other accused are the current Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, retired major general Giora Eiland, Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the journalist Zvi Yehezkeli.
The Israeli government has dismissed all allegations against it at the ICC and ICJ as baseless and grounded in antisemitism. At the ICJ, its lawyers argued that statements supposedly inciting genocide were partial and decontextualised.
Shatz said the submissions had presented a case that was “obvious”. He said: “It’s so solid, factually and legally, I don’t see how the prosecutor can avoid prosecuting.” The ICC prosecutor is not obliged to investigate based on the submissions.
