A Right to Resist: People’s Tribunal Condemns Western Backing for Genocide

 By Louis Brehony

The International People's Tribunal condemned Western Backing for Israel's genocide in Gaza. (Photo: via social media)

According to the verdict published by the Tribunal, the process of investigation sought to establish a clear record and tangible conclusions.

On December 3, a landmark grassroots investigation into the war crimes of the Zionist occupation of Palestine released its landmark verdict, finding the occupation and its backers “guilty of committing and supporting genocide, ecocide, and forced starvation in Palestine.”

Convened in Catalonia, the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine (IPT) saw two days of direct testimony featuring witnesses from Gaza and the West Bank. Unlike more liberal investigations, the IPT highlighted the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and self-determination, while calling for international mobilization against the regime.

In session from November 23-24, over 20 jurors, prosecutors, lawyers, and witnesses representing more than 11 nations gathered in Barcelona for a far-reaching interrogation of the Israeli aggression in Gaza. Bringing in experts in ecology, health science, and genocide, the IPT set out by explicitly acknowledging the failings, structural limitations, and politically compromised nature of the UN and its organs, including the International Criminal Court:

“Such failures have allowed two years of continuous mass violence, streamlined genocide and large-scale environmental destruction to unfold without an effective legal response.”

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According to the verdict published by the Tribunal, the process of investigation sought to establish a clear record and tangible conclusions where international institutions have been unable or unwilling to do so.

Azra Saeed, Secretary-General of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and an organizer of the Tribunal, summarized the key findings of the prosecution:

“First agriculture was destroyed and food crops, vegetables could no longer be cultivated, the water system collapsed, fishing boats were destroyed, and essential infrastructure — including bakeries, hospitals, doctors, pharmacists, and women’s reproductive health services — was targeted. Everything that could sustain life was systematically destroyed.”

That this onslaught was designed to erase Palestinian life and reproduction is highlighted by the December 2023 bombing of Al-Basma Fertility Center, destroying over 5,000 frozen embryos and sperm and egg samples, in one example among many. Describing the total process of genocidal warfare, Saeed points to “a deliberate strategy,” not mere “collateral damage.” She explained:

“The term metacide was used during the tribunal to describe the complete destruction of life, which includes of course not only human beings but environment, biodiversity.”

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Evidencing a Litany of Genocidal Practices

Here are some of the IPT witness statements:

“People were torn into pieces in the streets; shells rained down on our tents without warning. My son, age 13, was shot in the head. My daughter, age 12, was struck by shrapnel from a guided bomb.”

“Three hundred and eighty members of my extended family were killed, and every home and farm belonging to us was destroyed.”

16 witnesses brought their testimonies to the Tribunal, presenting “emblematic cases” evidencing genocidal and ecocidal crimes. As is the standard in international law, the witness testimonies were backed up by a range of documentary materials, satellite imagery, audiovisual evidence, and detailed expert reports.

This material was painstakingly gathered and expert Raji Sourani was among those to highlight the physical obliteration of scenes where war crimes had been committed. The final report indicated the “challenge inherent to mass atrocities,” with evidence “buried, incinerated, or inaccessible,” in the flattening of entire neighbourhoods, infrastructure, and ecological zones.

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Every act covered under Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention and Article 6 of the Rome Statute was found to have been committed in Gaza, including: 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; and forcibly transferring populations, particularly children.

The fact that Zionist actions were designed to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about destruction, as described in the 1948 Genocide Convention, was described graphically by witnesses to the IPT:

“Since October 7th, electricity has been completely cut off. Water no longer reaches buildings, sewage cannot be disposed of, and all aspects of life have stopped.”

This testimony was compounded by the statements of human rights lawyers:

“Food, medicine, water, and fuel were deliberately blocked; aid workers and humanitarian convoys were targeted as part of a systematic starvation policy.”

Based on tome-like volumes of further evidence, the Tribunal concluded with a guilty verdict of genocide upon “defendants” including current and former heads of state of the US, Britain, Germany, and France, alongside Netanyahu, the Israeli Security Cabinet, and occupation forces.

A Right to Resist and a Duty for Solidarity

The final verdict of the IPT called for an immediate end to the genocide on Gaza, ongoing despite the Trump-led, UN-stamped “peace” charade. Its conclusions included the demands:

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.

Unlike previous, toothless investigations, the conclusions of the IPT clearly foreground the right of the Palestinian people to resist their oppression, recognizing that the very processes of recording the truth are acts of resistance. Enshrined in International Covenants on political, civic, social, and cultural rights – and by ICJ judgements – the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination is “fundamental and inalienable,” according to the Tribunal.

Though a handful of progressive governments have taken a clear stand on the side of Palestinian liberation, notably in Latin America, Western states have collaborated directly in the genocide. Supporting UN Resolution 2803, the dominant powers and their regional allies back only a form of Palestinian “statehood” which serves their interests and leaves the occupation intact.

Refreshingly, the IPT concluded that progress towards peace and justice is predicated on the mobilization of campaigns of resistance around the world on the side of struggling Palestinians. Bringing truth to the people is an important step in this direction.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

– Louis Brehony is a musician, activist, researcher and educator. He is author of the book Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of Resistance (2023), editor of Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings (2024), and director of the award-winning film Kofia: A Revolution Through Music (2021). He writes regularly on Palestine and political culture and performs internationally as a buzuq player and guitarist. He contributed this article to The Palestine