The tribunal’s message came as it released its genocide verdict following four days of public hearings in Istanbul, Turkiye.

The Gaza Tribunal has issued its final findings, saying that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that “Israeli perpetrators and their Western enablers” should not be allowed to escape justice for their crimes.

The unofficial tribunal, which was established in London last November, gave its “moral judgement” on Sunday, following four days of public hearings in Istanbul, Turkiye.

Presided over by Richard Falk, a former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, the initiative comes in the tradition of the Russell Tribunal, which heard evidence in 1967 of United States war crimes in Vietnam.

The year-long Gaza process involved collecting information, hearing witnesses and survivors, and archiving the evidence.

In its ruling, the tribunal’s jury condemned the genocide in Gaza and crimes including the mass destruction of residential properties, the deliberate denial of food to the civilian population, torture, and the targeting of journalists.

Criticism of post-war plans

After saying that Israel’s war on Gaza shows global governance is failing to uphold its duties, the tribunal recommended that all “perpetrators, supporters and enablers” be held accountable and that Israel be suspended from international organisations like the UN.

The jury also found Western governments, “particularly the United States”, complicit with Israel through the provision of “diplomatic cover, weapons, weapon parts, intelligence, military assistance and training, and continuing economic relations”.

As well as calling for justice, the tribunal criticised two post-war plans put forward by US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, suggesting they “ignore the rights of the Palestinian people under international law” while “doing nothing to rein in the perpetrators of genocide”.

“Palestinians must lead the restoration of Gaza, and Israel and its enablers must be held responsible for all reparations,” members of the tribunal said in a statement.

Given that it is not a court of law, the tribunal “does not purport to determine guilt or liability of any person, organisation or state”, but should rather be seen as a civil society response to the war on Gaza, the jury said.

“We believe that genocide must be named and documented and that impunity feeds continuing violence throughout the globe,” the jurors explained. “Genocide in Gaza is the concern of all humanity. When states are silent civil society can and must speak out.”

Israel is facing genocide accusations – brought by South Africa – at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Although it is likely to be years before the ICJ gives its judgement, it found in an interim ruling in January 2024 that it is “plausible” that Israel is violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

Israel has repeatedly denied accusations that it has committed genocide in Gaza.

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Fighting comes as Taliban submits proposal at Pakistan-Afghanistan talks in Turkiye, while Islamabad warns of ‘open war’ if deal fails.

Fresh clashes near the border with Afghanistan have killed at least five Pakistani soldiers and 25 fighters, Pakistan’s army says, even as the two countries hold peace talks in Istanbul.

The Pakistani military said armed men attempted to cross from Afghanistan into Kurram and North Waziristan on Friday and Saturday, accusing the Taliban authorities of failing to act against armed groups operating from Afghan territory.

It said on Sunday that the attempted infiltrations raised questions over Kabul’s commitment to tackling “terrorism emanating from its soil”.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has not commented on the latest clashes, but has repeatedly rejected accusations of harbouring armed fighters and instead accuses Pakistan of violating Afghan sovereignty with air strikes.

Delegations from both countries arrived in Istanbul, Turkiye on Saturday for talks aimed at preventing a return to full-scale conflict. The meeting comes days after Qatar and Turkiye brokered a ceasefire in Doha to halt the most serious border fighting since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021.

The violence earlier this month killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

‘Open war’

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said the ceasefire remains intact and that Kabul appears interested in peace, but warned that failure in Istanbul would leave Islamabad with “open war” as an option.

Pakistan’s military described those involved in the weekend infiltrations as members of what it calls “Fitna al-Khwarij”, a term it uses for ideologically motivated armed groups allegedly backed by foreign sponsors.

United States President Donald Trump also weighed in on Sunday, saying he would “solve the Afghanistan-Pakistan crisis very quickly”, telling reporters on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia that he had been briefed on the ongoing talks.

Separately, Taliban-controlled broadcaster RTA said on Sunday that Kabul’s delegation in Turkiye had submitted a proposal after more than 15 hours of discussions, calling for Pakistan to end cross-border strikes and block any “anti-Afghan group” from using its territory.

The Afghan side also signalled openness to a four-party monitoring mechanism to supervise the ceasefire and investigate violations.

Afghanistan’s delegation is led by Deputy Interior Minister Haji Najib. Pakistan has not publicly disclosed its representatives.

Analysts expect the core of the talks to revolve around intelligence-sharing, allowing Islamabad to hand over coordinates of suspected Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters for the Taliban to take direct action, instead of Pakistan launching its own strikes.

Three people have been killed and at least 32 others injured in an overnight Russian air attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, the city’s mayor has said.

Two high-rise residential buildings were hit in the strikes, Vitali Klitschko said, adding in a Telegram post that six children were among the injured.

Meanwhile, Russian air defences destroyed two drones heading towards Moscow on Sunday, according to the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.

The latest Russian bombardment comes as Moscow has stepped up attacks on civilian targets and energy infrastructure ahead of winter, with Ukrainian authorities saying nearly 1,200 drones have been launched in the past week alone.

Officials in Kyiv said the three people were killed when a drone struck a nine-storey residential building in the Desnianskyi district to the north-west of the city, with 24 others injured in the same attack.

Damage was also reported to at least three other residential buildings in Kyiv. Seven people including two children are being treated in hospital, officials said.

Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, and it currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.

There has been marginal movement along the front lines as fighting on the ground continues, while Ukraine has sought to hurt Russia’s warfighting ability by striking its military production plants and oil facilities that are essential to its economy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently called on allies to supply his armed forces with long range weapons to continue doing so.

However, he came away from a recent meeting at the White House and subsequent EU summit empty-handed.

US President Donald Trump did announce new sanctions targeting Russia’s largest oil companies this week – the first time he had done so in his current term – as did the EU.

Trump said that talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “don’t go anywhere” as he shelved plans for the two to meet in Budapest over the war in Ukraine.

On his way to Asia over the weekend, Trump said he had a “great relationship” with Putin but that recent events had been “disappointing”, suggesting a meeting between the two was conditional on a peace deal being likely.

Trump has appeared increasingly frustrated with Russian conditions for bringing the war to a close, with a summit in Alaska in August failing to yield any tangible results.

The US president had previously said fresh sanctions on Moscow were contingent on European allies cutting their Russian energy imports. The EU has pledged to do so by 2028.

Zelensky has agreed to a US proposal to cease fighting along the current front lines so peace negotiations can begin – though this falls short of Russian demands that Ukrainian forces completely withdraw from the eastern Donbas region.

However, senior Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met US officials in Washington on Friday and Saturday, told CNN that he believed Russia, Ukraine and the US were close to a diplomatic solution to end the war.

“It’s a big move by President Zelensky to already acknowledge that it’s about battle lines,” Dmitriev said.

“You know, his previous position was that Russia should leave completely so actually, I think we are reasonably close to a diplomatic solution that can be worked out.”

Meanwhile, Russia said it conducted a test of an experimental nuclear-powered missile on Sunday, which has been hailed as having a potentially unlimited range and the ability to evade missile defences.