For immediate release
October 27, 2025
BARCELONA, SPAIN [October 27] – The International People’s Tribunal, set to convene in Barcelona on November 22-23, welcomes the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) recent advisory opinion demanding Israel allow aid into Gaza and cooperate with the UN, while also decrying the longstanding slowness of international bodies to effectively intervene in the ongoing genocide and ecocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
On October 22nd, the ICJ delivered a non-binding opinion stating that the Israeli government must allow international aid agencies such as UNRWA to deliver humanitarian aid as provisioned in the ceasefire agreement agreed upon by both the Palestinian resistance and Israel. This comes after a lengthy series of violations by Israel against the recent ceasefire agreement, including but not limited to vast aerial bombings of Gaza that have killed at least 87 Palestinians and cutting down aid allowed into Gaza by half. The Court added that Israel has been using starvation as a method of war, a more explicit stance on the forced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza than previously expressed.
While this opinion is welcomed by all peace-loving people that stand against the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, it also comes after countless other issuances by international institutions such as the ICJ that fail to see both the asymmetric nature between an occupying power and an occupied people, and also the root cause of the forced starvation, which is the ecocide that has destroyed over 98.5% of Gaza’s farmland.
“Even as the ICJ’s recent opinion goes further than it has previously against the occupying power of Israel, it still is effectively only a slap on the wrist,” states Edre Olalia, president of the International Alliance of Democratic Lawyers. He adds, “Even with the progress of the court’s decision, it does not address the root cause of the need for aid or its facilitation, which is the ecocide, nor the fact that an occupied people have a right to resist under the UN’s own charter and laws.”
This opinion also comes after Israel’s repeated efforts over the last year to ban UNRWA through baseless claims that it, along with other international entities within Gaza, has been infiltrated by so-called “terrorists”, a ploy to both falsely terror tag the Palestinian resistance and to justify their campaign of genocide. The ICJ has affirmed this, stating that none of these allegations have been substantiated. However, it has not nor will not reverse the de facto ban of UNRWA in the region due to its lack of binding power and lack of support for the main solution to ending the genocide: the right for the Palestinian people to resist.
“Occupations have never been ended through these so-called legal decisions, but rather the political movements in solidarity with the resistance and moreover the resistance itself against the occupying power,” says Azra Sayeed, the Secretary-General of the International League of People’s Struggle.
About the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine:
The IPT for Palestine is a civil society initiative organized by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), International Peoples’ Front, and the Peoples’ Coalition on Food Sovereignty, with the cooperation of endorsers including the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and Palestine Land Studies Centre, among others. It aims to establish a historical record of crimes against the Palestinian people, mobilize international solidarity, and exert moral and political pressure on complicit governments and international institutions.
Learn more about the tribunal: https://internationalsolidarity.org/tribunal/
View the recording of the launch event:
English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxk3jUGIdAM
Spanish: https://youtu.be/8uJxOopVtD8
For interviews with International Peoples Tribunal spokespeople or questions about the IPT email [email protected]
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