ISTANBUL

Speakers at the Gaza Tribunal’s final session on Saturday warned that the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza reflects not only the immediate violence of war but also a deeper, long-standing system of dispossession and discrimination, which they said amounts to apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

The four-day public session, held at Istanbul University from Thursday to Sunday, brought together jurists, academics, survivors and civil society figures to hear testimonies and examine Israel's crimes against Palestinians.

Palestinian-Egyptian poet and commentator Tamim al-Barghouti, appearing online, framed the crisis in historical and moral terms, arguing that discrimination against Palestinians is embedded in the constitutional and political structure of the Israeli state.

“What has happened in Palestine and what has been happening for the past several centuries is simply an act of apartheid and discrimination. Discrimination among human beings based on elements that they did not choose,” he said.

He added that citizenship and rights have been made contingent on religion and that attempts to displace Palestinians have repeatedly failed.

“The violence that we have been experiencing is just, in my view, an instinctive reaction to the realization that the project of occupying Palestine, of creating this entity, this foreign entity in Palestine, has failed and has no future.”

Global Sumud Flotilla activist Thiago Avila, also appearing online, described two decades of engagement with the Palestinian cause and said the past two years had produced a global awakening to what he called “a system that enables genocide.”

He traced these policies to legal and political frameworks that, in his view, institutionalize racial discrimination, and urged continued solidarity and resistance. “There is no peace without absolute justice, and that’s what we need to do right now,” he said.

Gaza Tribunal

The four-day public session marks the culmination of a year-long effort by international jurists, scholars and civil society figures to document Israel's crimes committed against Palestinians.

Presided over by Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, the tribunal aims to produce a comprehensive “people’s record” of what participants describe as genocide, apartheid and systemic violations of international law in Gaza.

The tribunal’s jury of conscience includes Kenize Mourad, Christine Chinkin, Chandra Muzaffar, Ghada Karmi, Sami Al-Arian and Biljana Vankovska.