Crucial hours for Israel and Gaza. Unless agreed upon extensions, there is time until this evening, even if everything can change quickly. International diplomacy holds the point and continues to advocate for the most ambitious agreement, the only one useful for weakening the conflict: release of the Israeli hostages against the release of the Palestinian prisoners and a congruous truce in the Strip with numbers and duration still to be finalized. But the cautious optimism of Egypt and Qatar, which are increasing pressure on Hamas while the United States works alongside Jerusalem, collapses in the middle of the day when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu undermines the negotiators’ efforts. Meeting the families of the 130 hostages and the many fallen, he raises the bar again: “We will enter Rafah and annihilate all the Hamas battalions present, with or without an agreement, to achieve total victory. The idea that we will put an end to the war before achieving all our goals is unacceptable.”
There don’t seem to be words capable of scaring Hamas, only the rest of the world and the one million four hundred thousand Palestinians left in Rafah in desperate conditions. “It would be an intolerable escalation”, denounces UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Netanyahu also raises his voice against the International Criminal Court (not recognized either by Jerusalem or Washington) which is considering whether to accuse him of war crimes together with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. The issuing of arrest warrants is a concrete hypothesis. “Eighty years after the Holocaust – declares the Israeli Prime Minister –, the international bodies that were established to avoid another Holocaust are evaluating the possibility of denying the Jewish State the right to defend itself”. The Likud leader speaks of “anti-Semitic hate crime that would add fuel to anti-Semitism”, and assures that “no decision, neither in The Hague nor elsewhere, will undermine our determination to achieve the objectives of the offensive on Gaza” in response to the attack on 7 October.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Jewish Power and Minister of Security, invites the prime minister not to stop at the gates of Rafah: “He promised that the war will not end. I welcome it”. But then he threatens the implosion of the government “if this doesn’t happen.” The other far-right ally Bezmael Smotrich, leader of religious Zionism and Finance Minister, also demolishes the draft mediated in Cairo: “A terrible defeat that will give Hamas a resounding victory on a silver platter.”
The agreement anticipated by the Wall Street Journal would include two phases: the first with the release of at least 20 hostages in three weeks for a still unspecified (but in all likelihood very high) number of Palestinian prisoners; the second with a 10-week ceasefire during which Hamas and Israel would agree on a wider release of hostages and an extended pause in fighting that could last up to a year. “Extraordinarily generous” Israeli offer, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who will meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog and then Netanyahu himself this morning. “No more delays, no more excuses,” is Blinken’s message to Hamas during yesterday’s visit to Jordan.
The United States is making every diplomatic and humanitarian effort to cool the crisis. Reasons of international politics (the Ukrainian front is enough and moving forward), of a changing legal framework (the ICC’s activism worries the entire Congress), but above all of internal politics: six months before the presidential elections, Joe Biden cannot have all the universities in turmoil due to pro-Palestinian demonstrations while the United States continues to supply weapons to Israel and Amnesty International, in addition to denouncing the fact, accuses Jerusalem of repeated “violations” of best practices to protect civilians (including unrealistic evacuation orders).
Amnesty’s findings coincide with those published on April 18 by a group of American experts and jurists, including Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department in protest against the war in Gaza. “A systematic disregard for the fundamental principles of international law, including recurrent attacks launched despite the evident disproportionate damage to civilians and civilian objects: this is the charge against Israel, already censured in March by Human Rights Watch and Oxfam. Only a temporary truce with Hamas it will perhaps be able to attenuate the growing polarizations.
