The Gaza Tribunal has drawn to a close in Istanbul after four days of intense deliberations, bringing together academics, human rights advocates and witnesses determined to document the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The session, held at Istanbul University, represented the culmination of a year-long civil initiative that emerged from frustration at the paralysis of international justice and the silence of states that claim to uphold human rights yet ignore Gaza’s suffering.

Throughout the proceedings, experts and survivors described the destruction of homes, hospitals and schools, and the deliberate targeting of civilians under siege. Testimonies painted a harrowing picture of life stripped of dignity, where families live beneath rubble and starvation is used as a weapon of control. Participants stressed that what is happening in Gaza cannot be reduced to politics, it is a moral catastrophe demanding accountability.

Presiding over the Tribunal, Professor Richard Falk, a distinguished scholar of international law, condemned the so-called peace plan once advanced by the United States as an act of coercion masquerading as diplomacy. He said the Tribunal’s mission was not only to expose atrocities but to lay the foundations for a just and humane future for Gaza’s people.

As the final session ended, organisers vowed to deliver their findings to international courts and institutions, calling for legal recognition of the genocide and urging the world to act where governments have failed. For many who attended, the Tribunal was less a courtroom than a moral reckoning, a place where truth could still speak for a silenced people.