VERDICT OF THE IPT ON PALESTINE
Executive Summary

THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE,

Complainant,

-versus-

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, MEMBERS OF THE ISRAEL SECURITY CABINET, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, THE US SECRETARY OF STATE, US SECURITY OFFICIALS, UNITED KINGDOM PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER AND FORMER PRIME MINISTER RISHI SUNAK, GERMAN PRESIDENT FRANK-WELTER STEINMEIER, FORMER CHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ, AND CHANCELLOR JOACHIM-FRIEDRICH MARTIN JOSEF MERZ, and FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON AND FORMER PRIME MINISTER GABRIEL ATTAL.

Defendants.

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The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine convened in Barcelona, Catalonia on November 22-23, 2025, to hear allegations concerning grave violations of international humanitarian law arising in the context of the ongoing genocide, ecocide and acts of starvation on the Palestinian people.

The Indictment was brought by the People of Palestine against Israeli political and military leaders and the heads of several Western states,  namely the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, who committed the crimes, or who gave indispensable support to the crimes  of  Genocide and Ecocide against the Palestinian people,  through the intentional destruction of the natural environment, the deliberate inducement of famine, and the systematic targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The prosecution alleged 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 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 Tribunal heard thirteen witnesses presenting emblematic cases evidencing the crimes of Genocide and Ecocide, together with three expert witnesses; all sixteen appeared before the Tribunal either in person, via videoconferencing, or by sworn written statements. Their testimonies were supported by documentary materials, satellite imagery, audiovisual evidence, and expert reports. While the Tribunal acknowledges that this short-form decision cannot reproduce all evidence presented across the two days of hearings, it affirms that the testimony of these sixteen witnesses forms a coherent and mutually reinforcing evidentiary record. Each witness offered direct insight into crimes alleged in the indictment, and when read together, their testimonies provide consistent, credible, and corroborated accounts of both the scale of destruction and the nature of the policies underlying it.

VERDICT

The Tribunal confirms what the International Court of Justice has recently reaffirmed: the Palestinian people have lived for generations under a regime of apartheid, marked by differential legal systems, segregation, movement restrictions, expropriation of land and resources, and the denial of political, civil, and economic rights. These structures are not incidental. They are the mechanisms through which long-term domination and fragmentation of an entire people have been achieved. Such systemic domination and racial segregation form the contextual backdrop against which genocidal policies can be planned, implemented, and concealed within the bureaucracy of occupation.

Furthermore, the Tribunal recognizes that the prolonged occupation and violent repression inflicted upon the Palestinian people could not have been sustained without extensive international collaboration, particularly from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. For decades—and with renewed intensity in the past two years, these states have supplied critical weapons systems, financial support, and political and diplomatic protection. This assistance has enabled the continuation of military operations, shielded perpetrators from accountability, and neutralized attempts within the United Nations system to halt the violence.

The Tribunal notes with particular concern that political vetoes, deliberate obstruction, and selective enforcement by imperialist states have rendered key international mechanisms—ICC, UNSC, and other UN bodies—unable to perform their mandates. This systemic paralysis has not only emboldened the perpetrators but also entrenched a global double standard regarding whose lives are protected under international law. In this context, the crimes alleged in the Indictment did not arise in a vacuum; they emerged from a long-standing matrix of domination, racial segregation, land dispossession, and international endorsement.

I. ON THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

The Tribunal ruled that genocide essentially consists of any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:

• killing members of the group;
• causing serious bodily or mental harm;
• deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction;
• imposing measures intended to prevent births;
• forcibly transferring populations, particularly children.

These acts are covered under Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention and Article 6 of the Rome Statute. The Tribunal also notes that intent (dolus specialis) may be inferred from patterns of conduct, the scale and systematic character of the attacks, and the foreseeable consequences of state policy.

Applying the definition of genocide to the established facts, the Tribunal finds that the Defendants committed genocide against the Palestinian people through, among others:

• killing members of the group;
• causing serious bodily and mental harm;
• inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction;
• preventing births by collapsing healthcare and reproductive services.

The Tribunal therefore holds the Defendants guilty of the crime of genocide under Article II of the Genocide Convention and Article 6 of the Rome Statute.

II. ON THE CRIME OF ECOCIDE

The Tribunal distinguishes between ordinary environmental damage—even when severe—and Ecocide, which consists of widespread, long-term, and severe destruction of the environment, carried out with knowledge that such destruction will render life impossible for the affected civilian population. Ecocide does not require proof of a separate intention to harm nature for its own sake.  In this sense, Ecocide is both a stand-alone wrong and a method that amplifies genocide: destroying the environment destroys human life by eliminating the material conditions required for survival.

On the basis of extensive expert testimony, satellite evidence, witness accounts, UN reports, and scientific analyses, the Tribunal finds that:

• Israeli forces caused widespread, long-term, and severe environmental destruction in Gaza;
• This destruction was deliberate or carried out with knowledge of its inevitable consequences;
• The ecological devastation was used as a method to starve, displace, and ultimately destroy the Palestinian people;
• Gaza has been rendered, in the words of one witness, “an environment no longer suitable for human life.”

The Tribunal therefore holds the Defendants guilty of Ecocide, amounting to War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and a stand-alone crime of exceptional gravity.

III. ON THE CRIME OF STARVATION

 The Tribunal finds that under the Rome Statute, it is a war crime to intentionally use starvation of civilians as a method of warfare whether depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival or by willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions. Scholars argue that depending on the severity of the starvation conditions, this could be heightened to a crime against humanity or even genocide.

In enabled defiance of IHL and international customary law , the occupation has been enabled to curate “the fastest starvation campaign documented in modern history” through its longstanding use of weaponization of starvation as a means of accelerating and finalising the Israeli settler colonial project of erasing and replacing the indigenous Palestinian population.

Accordingly, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declaration of an entirely man-made famine that took hold in Gaza in August 2025, having killed 459, including 154 children, by October 2025, must be approached in relation to this trajectory.

On the basis of historical documentative, expert and witness testimony, UN nutritional and agricultural reports, the Tribunal finds that, among others:

• Israeli occupation has systematically deprived the Palestinian people of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, agricultural resources, medical supplies, and means of livelihood;
• Such deprivation has been deliberate, structured, and sustained, implemented through policies of siege, blockade, destruction of food and agro-ecosystems, and the obstruction of humanitarian relief;

The Tribunal therefore holds the Defendants guilty of Starvation as a Method of Warfare, constituting a War Crime and a Crime Against Humanity as part of a broader strategy of domination, displacement, and destruction of the Palestinian people.

IV. RESPONSIBILITY AND COMPLICITY OF THE DEFENDANTS

a. Israel as the Principal Perpetrator: the Tribunal finds that the State of Israel—through its Prime Minister, Security Cabinet, and the upper command of the Israeli Defense Forces—is the principal perpetrator of the genocide, ecocide and forced starvation established in these proceedings. The mass killings, deliberate starvation, systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, environmental devastation, and the targeting of hospitals, shelters, schools, and places of refuge were carried out as a matter of state policy and with full knowledge of their lethal consequences. Israeli leadership therefore bears direct and primary responsibility for the crimes adjudicated.

b. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany : the Tribunal further finds that the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, among others, played an indispensable role in enabling and sustaining the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people. Their contribution is reflected in:

1. supplying the weapons, munitions, and equipment used throughout the assault;
2. providing intelligence, logistical support, and financial aid;
3. offering political and diplomatic protection, including shielding Israel from accountability mechanisms;
4. obstructing ceasefire efforts and blocking humanitarian access; and
5. normalizing mass atrocities through selective application of international law. This degree of support constitutes indispensable cooperation.

In the words that capture the reality before the Tribunal: These states stocked Israel’s armory, filled its war chest, and shielded it from accountability, making possible the destruction of Gaza and the massacre of its people. Their responsibility is therefore one of complicity—not primary perpetration but aiding, abetting, and enabling the crimes found in this Verdict.

c. Accordingly, the Tribunal concludes that:

1. Israel bears primary and direct responsibility for genocide, ecocide and forced starvation;
2. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, among others, bear complicity responsibility, having provided indispensable cooperation that materially enabled and politically protected the commission of these crimes; and
3. Their actions and omissions substantially contributed to the continuation, escalation, and impunity of the genocidal and ecocidal campaign.

The Defendants named in the Indictment are therefore GUILTY, individually and collectively, in accordance with the charges brought before this Tribunal.

V. CALL TO ACTION

In light of its findings, the Tribunal calls upon states, institutions, and peoples of the world to, among others: (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.0 (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.

As one witness reminded this Tribunal with painful clarity: “There is no safe place in Gaza.”

The Tribunal affirms: It is the responsibility of the world to ensure that safety is not a privilege reserved for some peoples, but a right guaranteed for all. #

23 November 2025, Barcelona, Catalonia

 PANEL OF JURORS :

 Ceren Uysal (Turkey)  Presiding Juror
Abdessalam Kleiche (France)
David Minoves (Catalonia)
Joris Vercammen (The Netherlands)
Bouchra Khalil (Lebanon)
Iratxe Urizar (Basque Country)
Sagari Ramdas (India)