This speech was delivered by Sebastian Tueres of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle Commission 19 (Environment and Climate Justice) as synthesis to ZERO IN: Understanding and Confronting the Crime of Ecocide in Palestine, the third topic of the educational series organized by the Right to Resist: The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine, to be held 22–23 November 2025 in Barcelona, Spain. Learn more about the Tribunal, re-watch the previous sessions, register to attend, donate to support: https://internationalsolidarity.org/tribunal/
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As we have seen in today’s webinar – imperialist ecocide is not just a crime against nature. It is a weapon of domination by colonial powers, most viciously wielded today by US imperialism and its Zionist allies in the genocidal assault against Palestine. The US regime is the chief architect and main sponsor of global wars of aggression, militarization, racist violence, and the devastation of ecosystems in pursuit of profit, plunder, and expansion. Across the globe, US imperialism drives climate catastrophe, famine, and forced displacement, through bombs, blockades, military bases and transnational corporations. Their arms, cargo planes, and genocidal wars rain death from above and poison the ground below, as we have seen in Gaza.
What we have heard from our resource persons are not simply accounts of environmental destruction and the extermination of peoples, but the calculated erasure of their lands, water, and culture. These acts of ecocide are orchestrated by the US military-industrial complex and perpetuated by its client regimes such as Israel. These are designed to break the will and future of oppressed peoples who dare to speak of liberation. Across the globe, we see the same pattern of militarization and ecocide in countries oppressed by imperialist powers, entangled with the geopolitics of war and extraction through settler‑colonial control.
Dr. Basavi noted that India’s Indigenous peoples suffer landlessness, violent state actions, and corporate repression despite the nation’s abundant natural resources. Wealthy interests repeatedly appropriate fertile land and mineral deposits without proper consultation or compensation, displacing communities, eroding cultures, and concentrating profits among elites.
In West Papua, corporations and the Indonesian military under the Prabowo regime exploit resources and suppress independence movements; with thousands killed, and tens of thousands displaced to make way for mining and palm-oil plantations.
Rae’s briefing, backed by the International Learning and Solidarity Mission, shows that massive deforestation, mining, landgrabbing, and reclamation activities in the Philippines are protected by the military and private security forces, enabling landlords and “bureaucrat‑capitalists” to carry out forced evictions, red‑tagging and other human‑rights abuses against Indigenous and rural communities.
Globally, militaries are major greenhouse gas emitters. The US military emits about 48 million metric tons of CO₂ annually, comparable to entire countries, with US-led wars releasing 440 million tons of CO₂. The Gaza conflict alone generated 420,000 to 652,000 tons of CO₂ within its first 120 days, with reconstruction potentially adding 47 to 60 million tons more.
The documented destruction of Gaza’s agricultural land reveals a systematic pattern of ecocide predating October 7. Al Mezan’s research shows that 35 % of farmland was razed between 2000‑2023 to create “no‑go buffer zones,” while Forensic Architecture has recorded repeated bulldozing of fields and homes and the aerial spraying of herbicides along the eastern border since 2014. These actions—intended to seize land and erase evidence of prior life—have devastated soil quality and food production, constituting unlawful environmental damage.
Beyond outright land clearance, Israel’s broader settler‑colonial policies also generate ecological harm. Francesca Albanese’s report notes that Palestinian water consumption is restricted to a fraction of what Israeli settlers use—about one‑third of the per‑capita amount—while native olive groves are systematically uprooted and replaced with non‑indigenous European pines. Such deliberate alteration of the landscape’s character and the denial of essential resources further exemplify ecocide, highlighting how environmental degradation can serve as a tool of dispossession and cultural erasure.
The Commission on Environment and Climate Justice of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle stands firmly and militantly beside the people of Palestine and all oppressed nations in fighting back against imperialist aggression, fascism, ecocide, and war.
We shall not be cowed or silenced. Together we shall expose ecocide as a weapon of imperialism. We call on all activists, mass organizations, and freedom fighters worldwide to intensify our mass campaigns, education, and on-ground struggles for liberation and environmental and social justice. Let us support, observe, and actively participate in the upcoming International People’s Tribunal on the Right to Resist: The Palestinian People vs. The Zionist Occupation and the US Government happening on the 22nd to the 23rd of November. Let us show the world that the crime of imperialism will not go unpunished. By joining forces globally, we shall defeat imperialism and then shall the planet and humanity truly be free.
The resistance in Palestine is the struggle of all oppressed and exploited peoples! Down with imperialism! Down with Zionist occupation! Long live international solidarity! ###