The Gaza Tribunal, whose president is Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories (2008–2014), issued on Aug. 18 an “Emergency Statement” titled “Time To ACT: Mobilizing Against Israel’s Planned Conquest on Gaza City and Central Gaza.” On Aug. 15, Falk discussed his views during the 115th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition.
The statement warns that Israel’s current escalation, despite opposition from its own military leaders, for the final occupation of Gaza City, “deeply challenges Member Governments of the UN as well as the United Nations as an organization and other multilateral institutions to take Drastic Action Now.” It adds: “Words of condemnation and nonviolent protest activity of Israel’s genocide in Gaza have gone unheeded for more than 22 months.”
It denounces the fake aid organization established by Israel and the U.S., writing that the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ... has turned the inadequately situated four food distribution sites into killing fields that enable Israeli military forces to engage in cruel and vindictive lethal acts against helpless, starving Palestinian civilians.”
Asking what is to be done, the statement asserts: “We suggest nothing less than immediate authorization of armed intervention in Gaza to stop the genocide and providing the capabilities to ensure success.... In view of the gravity and magnitude of the dire situation in Gaza we urge the General Assembly to authorize on an emergency basis the immediate formation of an armed intervention suitably equipped and funded to ensure the end to the Israeli genocide. This international protective force should remain deployed until Israeli forces are fully and permanently withdrawn from Gaza and internationally administered aid can be reliably delivered without Israeli interference. At that point internationally monitored free elections should be organized in the Gaza Strip in a manner respectful of the sovereign rights of the Palestinian people to select their future political leadership. Only such drastic action has any hope of resolving what has become identified as the greatest moral crisis of our time. The failure to act now will be long remembered as an historic failure of humanity.”
The statement asserts that there are two paths available within the framework of the UN:
