BARCELONA [December 3] – The International People’s Tribunal for Palestine (IPT) released a landmark verdict that an esteemed panel of 7 jurors passed down, finding Israel, the US, and other governments guilty of committing and supporting genocide, ecocide, and forced starvation in Palestine. This happened after two days of testimony from witnesses from Gaza and the West Bank, as well as experts in the fields of ecology, health science, and genocide. (Speaker bios and the verdict itself can be viewed by clicking the links above).

The document represents the Tribunal’s short-form findings, delivered in advance of a longer, fully reasoned judgment to be published in due course.

The verdict began by acknowledging:

• that official international mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and relevant United Nations organs, have been hindered by political obstruction, selective enforcement, and structural limitations;

• that such failures have allowed two years of continuous mass violence, streamlined genocide and large-scale environmental destruction to unfold without an effective legal response; and

• that, in this vacuum, the role of an ad hoc people’s tribunal is precisely to establish the record, clarify the applicable legal standards, and articulate accountability where formal systems have been unable or unwilling to do so.

The Summary of Indictment section of the verdict provided an overview of what is outlined in the main body of the document:

The Indictment brought by the People of Palestine against Israeli political and military leaders and the heads of several Western states, alleges that Israel, with the indispensable support of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, has committed Genocide and Ecocide through the intentional destruction of the natural environment, the deliberate inducement of famine, and the systematic targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The prosecution asserts that these acts—including the devastation of agricultural land, water systems, food production facilities, and natural resources indispensable to life—amount to gross violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well as violations of the Genocide Convention, the Rome Statute, and customary international law.

The Indictment further contends that the long-standing military occupation and apartheid system imposed by Israel has been reinforced by the political, military, and economic involvement of its Western allies, thereby creating the conditions for mass starvation, ecocide, enforced displacement, and the destruction of cultural heritage.

It details acts such as the decimation of over 98 percent of Gaza’s agricultural sector, the killing of nearly all livestock, the contamination of soil and water with toxic munitions, the destruction of wells, orchards, agricultural food infrastructure and fishing plans and greenhouses, and the imposition of a total blockade denying food, water, fuel, and medicine.

These acts are alleged to constitute a coordinated campaign to annihilate the Palestinian people by destroying both their means of survival and the ecological foundations of life itself, amounting to genocide, ecocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The verdict then outlined the Procedural Background and Evidentiary Framework that it used to outline its position, and made it clear that it places its findings of the Israeli Zionist occupation within a colonial framework that has thrived on apartheid and the international complicity of great power states.

The verdict outlined very detailed findings on genocide, ecocide, and forced starvation, drawing on the live and written testimony of thirteen witnesses and three experts; expert analyses supported by scientific or technical data; documentary evidence including reports, photographs, and satellite images; and facts widely known and independently corroborated by reliable international human rights organisations and bodies.

The verdict finished by highlighting beyond a shadow of a doubt the complicity of the defendants (Israel, the US, and its other backers), and passed its conclusion and calls to action including:

1. End the assault and siege on Gaza immediately. Ensure the unimpeded entry of food, water, fuel, medicine, and humanitarian aid; open all crossings; dismantle all barriers preventing survival.
2. Hold to full account the defendants and all other actors that are complicit in the genocide, ecocide, acts of forced starvation, and the destruction of everything (“metacide”) against the Palestinian People.
3. Implement and cooperate with arrest warrants and judicial measures relating to genocide, ecocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—including those against the named Defendants.
4. Rescind all international resolutions and measures that are contrary to the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, to peace and to development.
5. Oppose the targeting, censorship, sanctioning, or criminalization of journalists, human rights organizations, and international monitors. Their work is essential to truth, memory, and future accountability.
6. Call upon scientists and ecologists to support the Palestinian people in their efforts to restore, rehabilitate, and reconstruct their territory and natural resources.
7. End all military, financial, technological, and diplomatic support to the Israeli government until the genocide and ecocide cease and full accountability processes are initiated.
8. Uphold the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to resist against genocide, ecocide, illegal occupation, apartheid, and acts of aggression.
9. Ensure the Right of the Palestinian People to return and for the restitution, rehabilitation and rebuilding of their destroyed property and land, and the enjoyment of permanent sovereignty over their natural and environmental resources.
10. Mobilize civil society, unions, institutions, and peoples worldwide to resist genocide, ecocide and “metacide”, and to act where states have failed.
11. Call the international community to fight the discriminatory nature and use of international law against the Palestinian people and campaign for new instruments or mechanisms consistent with the fundamental and basic rights of peoples.

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About the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine:

The IPT for Palestine was a civil society initiative organized by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), International Peoples’ Front, and the Peoples’ Coalition on Food Sovereignty, with the cooperation of over 240 endorsing organizations including the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and Palestine Land Studies Centre, among others. It was convened to establish a historical record of crimes against the Palestinian people, mobilize international solidarity, and exert moral and political pressure on complicit governments and international institutions.

Learn more about the tribunal: https://internationalsolidarity.org/tribunal/ 

For interviews with International Peoples Tribunal spokespeople or questions about the IPT email palestineiptmedia@gmail.com

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