Preparatory material | Two Years On: Genocide, Annexation, Apartheid, and the Future of Palestinian Self-Determination – with a focus on the Trump Exclusionary Gaza Plan

Jurists for Palestine Forum – Season 3 – Panel Discussion (8)

This summary was prepared by the Jurist Forum Team

This document presents a summary of 4 articles/ reports that address different dimensions of over two years of genocide, annexation, apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The first report focuses on establishing the crime of genocide in Gaza based on a legal assessment of factual evidence. The second report addresses Israeli policies of settlement expansion in the West Bank. The third article analyzes the forms of Palestinian advocacy strategies over time. The fourth article presents the opinions of several international law and justice experts on US President Donald Trump’s “peace plan” that was revealed on 29 September 2025.

Executive Summary:

• The first report summarized is the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel report published on 16 September 2025 wherein it concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinias in Gaza since 7 October 2023. The Commission found that four genocidal acts were carried out by Israel against the Palestinian people: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births with the group. The Commission found that the four genocidal acts were committed with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza, in whole or in part.
• The second report summarized explains how Israel is entrenching its de facto annexation of the West Bank, with governance increasingly shifting toward Israeli civilian control since the December 2022 government and the October 2023 attacks. This process, driven largely by the settler movement and pursued despite internal divisions and international law, aims to preclude a future Palestinian state. Whether or not annexation is formally declared, it is already a reality on the ground. Reversing this course requires external actors to acknowledge the situation, sustain political pressure, and impose tangible costs that make continued annexation materially and politically untenable, as the only viable means to preserve prospects for Palestinian self-determination and regional stability.
• The third article analyzes Palestinian political and civil society mobilization during the 2023–2024 Gaza war amid genocide allegations against Israel, highlighting a new hybrid advocacy model combining legal, digital, and transnational strategies. Key ICJ rulings gave advocacy legal legitimacy, while protests, online campaigns, and global partnerships amplified Palestinian voices despite repression and internal divisions. The study concludes that this period marks a pivotal evolution in Palestinian mobilization and recommends strengthening legal capacity, digital infrastructure, and international alliances to sustain pressure and accountability efforts.
• The Opinio Juris article gathers the assessments of six international law experts on the Trump–Netanyahu “peace” plan, widely criticized as a coercive, unequal, and colonial blueprint for Gaza. Across all analyses, the plan is characterized as undermining Palestinian self-determination, bypassing local consent, and replacing Palestinian governance with externally imposed technocratic authority while entrenching Israeli control. The experts collectively argue that the plan violates international law, perpetuates inequities, and normalizes external control under the guise of peace, calling instead for adherence to international obligations to protect Palestinian rights and accountability.

Read the full preparatory material through this link. Click