SHOTLIST:

ISTANBUL, TÜRKİYE (OCT. 24, 2025) (ANADOLU - ACCESS ALL)

1.(SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. LANA TATOUR, LECTURER AT UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SPEAKING TO REPORTER:

"The Gaza Tribunal aims to bring justice and accountability to Palestinians in Gaza in the face of the genocide and in the face of the failure of the international community and international order to prevent the genocide from happening and holding Israel accountable to its actions.

I don't think that this necessarily will affect the ICC ruling per se but the Tribunal is a civil society initiative and it definitely joins many other international organizations and experts who have come to the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and the addition of the Tribunal here is important in particular ways because it centers Palestinians in Gaza, it looks at the genocide and historical perspective and looking at the roots of Israeli occupation and settler colonialism and apartheid and bringing testimonies from people in Gaza.

So it's a demand from civil society for accountability and determination that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. So the international court of justice the ruling is going to be years from now. In the meantime, civil society is clear on the determination of the Gaza genocide as such.

[...] I think the work that your agency doing alongside other outlets such as Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye has been so important especially giving that Western media have been complicit and have been playing a complicit role in the genocide of Gaza and ignoring the facts on the ground and repeating Israeli propaganda and justifying the genocide.So the work that your agency and other agencies are doing in bringing truth and bringing the facts from the ground is really significant in the face of Western complicity.

This is one example in the Gaza Tribunal of how this is happening in civil society and it's wonderful to see so many media outlets covering the Gaza Tribunal. And this is one way in which civil society is doing that.

[...] It's important to hold them accountable. We're not giving up on interviewing also in Western media. We do that but I think it is our duty that when we engage in Western media to continually challenge them on being a mouthpiece for Israeli propaganda on not doing proper journalistic work, on not standing in solidarity with journalists in Gaza, their colleagues who have been murdered in their masses, targeted by Israel and assassinated for the work that they do.

[...] What is called the ceasefire and we know it's not quite a ceasefire. We know that Palestinians are still being killed in Gaza.

[...] They promised never again, but obviously this promise does not apply to Palestinians.

[...] What we need is not empty rhetoric words, is not empty statements, it's not empty gestures of recognizing a Palestinian state that doesn't exist. What we need is actions in the form of serious sanctions on the Israeli state. We just had the International Court of Justice yesterday issue a new advisory opinion that addresses Israel's ban of UNRWA in Gaza. This is an important advisory opinion because it shows that Israel is not meeting its obligations as a member state of the UN.The next step of the international community should be unseating Israel as a member of the UN. So we need sanctions and we need serious action. I think that we all know the weaknesses of the UN. We know that the American veto is a serious hurdle in the Security Council to any justice and accountability for Palestinians. [...]"
ISTANBUL, TÜRKİYE - OCT. 24, 2025: Dr. Lana Tatour from the University of New South Wales in Australia attended the final session of the international forum Gaza Tribunal in Istanbul on Friday, Oct. 24.

Dr. Tatour said Israel must be held accountable before the international community for
what she described as genocide in Gaza. She called on world leaders to impose binding sanctions on Israel rather than issuing symbolic statements.

The final session of the international forum Gaza Tribunal opened Thursday in Istanbul, marking the culmination of a year-long effort by international jurists, scholars, and civil society figures to document and evaluate alleged crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

The four-day public session, held from Thursday to Sunday at Istanbul University, builds on earlier hearings in Sarajevo and other global forums, aiming to consolidate findings across its three chambers: International Law, International Relations and World Order, as well as History, Ethics, and Philosophy.

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.


Reporting by Zeynep Katre Oran, Nuri Aydın / Writing by Ayse Elif Erdis