Philadelphia organizers host people’s tribunal on war crimes in Gaza

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Hundreds of people gathered in person and online Saturday for the Philadelphia’s People Tribunal on war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

The event, held in person at The Friends Center in Center City, was co-sponsored by Fridays at Fetterman’s, a grassroots advocacy group that has held weekly peace vigils for Gaza outside of Sen. John Fetterman’s Old City office since December 2023. American Friends Service Committee and Friends of Sabeel North America, two international peacemaking organizations, were also co-sponsors.

Sen. John Fetterman did not respond to a request for comment.

“We felt that the United States, Congress and the courts in the United States have either been negligent or ineffectual in their efforts to hold the U.S. government and government officials accountable for what’s happening in Gaza,” said Terry Rumsey, co-coordinator of Fridays at Fettermans. “So we decided that it was up to the people of Philadelphia to hold them accountable.”

Rumsey said the people’s tribunal is a tradition that goes back to the Vietnam War.

“Rather than relying on our state officials or our state judiciary, the people themselves bring together attorneys and witnesses to prosecute a case against the state actor, who we believe to be violating human rights,” he said.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages during an attack on Israel. More than 15,000 of Palestinians killed in the Israeli onslaught in Gaza were children. Hamas is responding Saturday to a ceasefire deal proposed by the United States, while Gazans are starving due to what was a monthslong Israeli blockade on aid, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian chief.

Saturday’s tribunal included testimonies from Palestinians on the ground in Gaza as well as human rights attorneys and humanitarian aid workers.

Nada, a 21-year-old woman who only identified herself by her first name over concerns for her safety, called into the proceedings from Northern Gaza. She described the loss of multiple family members and friends in the war, the displacement of her family and destruction of her neighborhood of Sheik Ajleen, and her struggle to help her younger siblings continue their education amid the devastation.

“I’m talking about people, not about numbers,” she said.

She said she doesn’t know if she will “survive one hour,” as Israeli bombings continue, but expressed her hope that she will be able to return to her nursing studies and graduate with a degree.

Yusuf Aljamal, the Gaza coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, grew up in Gaza and still has family there. He has lost family members, friends and neighbors in the current war. He said the tribunal was an important step towards pushing for an end to the conflict.

“I believe governments will not move unless we move as people,” he said. “People have been playing a major role in global politics, and Gaza has now been on the global politics agenda for about 20 months, and I think it’s very important for people to convene and discuss war crimes taking place in Gaza and elsewhere in the world to push their governments to act.”

State Rep. Chris Rabb was the only elected official present at the tribunal.

Sam Kuttab, a Palestinian American who has lived in Philadelphia for 40 years, also offered his testimony Saturday. He told WHYY News he hopes the tribunal, along with protests and other actions, will encourage local and elected officials to “take a stand.”

Citing the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in the conflict, Kuttab said U.S. support of Israel’s actions “sends a very bad message to the world of who we are as a nation, and it sends a very bad message, also here in the United States to your people.”

“I mean, if you’re OK with killing a child in Gaza, what happens to the streets in Philadelphia?” he added. “It’s a really serious problem for us.”

Kuttab founded Prayers for Peace Alliance, an interfaith group with Muslim, Christian and Jewish members, to advocate for an end to the conflict.

“It’s about the rule of law, it’s about respect, it’s about democracy, it’s about international law that we helped create as a nation,” he said. “If you see the demonstrations that occurred here in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the country, you see average Americans, Jews, Christians, Muslims, that don’t have necessarily a direct connection to the Israeli-Palestine issue. You see them standing and say, ‘No, this is not good. This is not acceptable. This is not who we are.’”

Kuttab’s brother, Jonathan Kuttab, a human rights attorney and expert on international law, also spoke at the tribunal. He told WHYY News the gathering is intended to fill the void “when the courts and the governments fail to do their job.”

“Law operates, not because there are judges and police and courts,” he said. “But because there is a general social understanding, you drive on the right hand side of the road, not the left. You don’t go through a red light, not because there’s a policeman at every red light, but because that’s how society operates. Humanity needs to operate in a collective way that respects certain ideals, and one of them is you don’t commit genocide.”

Israel’s government has repeatedly denied reports of “genocidal acts” in Gaza. Thousands of Israeli citizens, however, including family members of the several of the hostages who are in Hamas’s captivity, have spoken out in opposition to the ongoing war.

Robin Lasersohn, co-coordinator of Fridays at Fetterman’s, said the group wants to see an end to the conflict for the benefit of everyone impacted.

“Our concern is for all the human beings living in the entire region, Israelis, Palestinians and people from other nations, who have been victimized in this conflagration,” she said. “It is our sincere belief and hope that by taming Israel’s disproportionate and truly now deranged response to this situation, that a negotiated peace could release Israeli hostages, release Palestinian captives, and bring security and safety and freedom to all of the people together.”

Rumsey says he hopes the tribunal in Philadelphia will lead to a legal case in either national or international court.

“We’re going to put the case for genocide and war crimes on the record and have it be archived,” he said. “We also believe that it’s going to be a tool that advocates in Philadelphia across Pennsylvania and throughout the United States can use to hold their government officials, be it in Congress or the executive branch, accountable for complicity with Israel’s war crimes and genocide in Gaza, and we believe that it is a tool to educate and empower just average citizens.”

The jury will present their findings from the tribunal on June 13 at the weekly Fridays at Fetterman’s peace vigil.