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In a city still etched with the scars of war and injustice, voices rose in unison to demand accountability for a distant yet heartbreakingly familiar tragedy. It was no coincidence that Sarajevo, a symbol of resilience and pain, was chosen as the site of the first public event of the Gaza Tribunal, an independent initiative often referred to as the “people’s tribunal.”
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its people, understand all too well the toll of prolonged suffering, hunger, daily death, and oppression, having endured the 1992 to 1995 war that claimed more than 100,000 lives.
That sense of shared history reverberated throughout the four-day gathering in Sarajevo, where academics, activists, and professionals from around the world came together. Again and again, speakers drew poignant parallels: between the siege of Sarajevo and the bombardment of Gaza, between the starvation and denial of medicine then and now, between the genocide in Srebrenica and what many now call a genocide unfolding in Gaza..
“We are not animals, we are human beings,” one witness from Gaza told the assembly. His identity, like those of many still in Gaza, was shielded for safety. But his words carried the raw truth of lived experience.
Like everyone else in the room, his outcry was not only directed at Israel’s campaign in Gaza, but also at the deafening silence, and, at times, complicity, of a world that continues to support it through various means. And silence.
“Children ask, ‘Where is the soul?’ 80 to 90 per cent of homes [were] destroyed. This is systematic annihilation,” he said.
"Flour costs $500 per bag. I documented children dying from cold and malnutrition. My father was killed in his sleep when his tent was bombed for no reason."
The tribunal, held from May 26 to 29, culminated in the Sarajevo Declaration, a powerful document that called for “an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the genocide,” among other urgent demands. It was more than a legal statement. It was a moment of shared moral clarity, forged in the painful recognition that the past compels us to act; that memory itself is a responsibility.
“We, the members of the Gaza Tribunal, declare our collective moral outrage at the continuing genocide in Palestine, our solidarity with the people of Palestine, and our commitment to working with partners across global civil society to end the genocide and to ensure accountability for perpetrators and enablers, redress for victims and survivors, the building of a more just international order, and a free Palestine,” the tribunal’s declaration states.
The declaration condemns “the Israeli regime for genocide and decades of settler colonialism, apartheid, racial persecution, forced displacement, collective punishment, and the systematic denial of fundamental human rights.”
While the world watches the faint prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinians continue to die.
“The fact that this is not the first genocide that Zionism has inflicted on the Palestininans, and the fact that we commemorated the Nakba anniversary twice during this genocide, compels us to ask: What evidence is more needed for everyone to realise the nature of Israel and the nature of Zionism?” Palestinian author Nimer Sultany told the audience during the event.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed since the escalation of war between Hamas and Israel. Following Hamas’s attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, the Israeli leadership launched a relentless military campaign, marked by the sustained bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure, mass displacement, and the blocking of humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave of 2.3 million people. In its report from December 2024, Amnesty International has “found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip”.
And although it does not carry any legal implication, the tribunal’s organizers hope that the declaration would send a strong message and pressure “governments to act.”
“People’s Tribunal”
The Gaza Tribunal was officially formed in October 2024 in London, gathering intellectuals, human rights advocates, media professionals and legal experts. Confronting what it calls “a total failure of the organised international community to uphold international law in the most severe, visible case of genocide in real time,” the Gaza Tribunal positions itself as a people-led response to institutional inaction.
According to its website, the tribunal seeks to legitimize “an alternative paradigm of international law”, one grounded in the moral authority of ordinary people and their collective sense of justice, rather than the often-compromised mechanisms of governments and official institutions.
The initiative is led by an eight-member steering committee chaired by Richard Falk, emeritus professor of international law and former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. They are supported by a 29-member advisory policy council made up of civil society leaders and public intellectuals from Palestine, Europe, and North America.
According to the tribunal's executive secretary, Ahmet Koroglu, the initiative “is completely independent, without any political or ideological backing”, and funded by voluntary contributions. Prior to gathering in Sarajevo, the tribunal had convened three times in closed sessions.
“This is our first public assembly, and in these four days we had chamber’s meetings, proceedings, whiteness and expert testimonials provided to the tribunal’s jury,” Koroglu told La Converse.
“In the next three to four months, we will collect reports, evidence and testimonials,” he said, after which a seven-member jury will make a final decision with “an aim to raise awareness to genocide in Gaza” scheduled for October 2025.
“Safe haven” to discuss issues
The Gaza Tribunal draws on a long tradition of “people’s tribunals”, the grassroots initiatives created to confront grave injustices when official institutions remain silent or complicit.
The model was first popularized by the Russell Tribunal on Vietnam in 1966, organized by philosopher Bertrand Russell and later chaired by Jean-Paul Sartre. Though lacking legal authority, it gathered powerful testimony on US war crimes and helped shift global public opinion.
This was followed by further tribunals addressing repression in Latin America, apartheid in South Africa, and later, the 2005 World Tribunal on Iraq, which investigated the legality and consequences of the U.S.-led invasion.
These initiatives, including the still-active Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal founded in 1979, do not claim formal judicial power, but instead derive legitimacy from moral authority, public conscience, and historical truth. They offer a platform to those denied justice and create detailed records that often serve as precursors to legal or political change.
In that spirit, the Gaza Tribunal positions itself as a response to the failure of governments and international institutions to act, aiming instead to elevate the voices of victims and mobilize public accountability from below.
The room echoes with different languages and accents. From Turkish and Arabic, to American and UK accents, with dozens of visitors from all around North America, Europe, Middle East and Turkey. Instead of unwinding on holiday, Montreal-based lawyer Hugo De Koulen chose to spend his vacation in Sarajevo, not sightseeing, but sitting through hours of testimony at the Gaza Tribunal.
De Koulen began by noting that he wasn’t taking sides in what was initially framed as a mere military conflict between Hamas and Israel. But, he added, that framing no longer holds. “It doesn’t seem to be the case anymore,” he said, “but instead appears as a unilateral, one-sided aggression and evidenced ethnic cleansing.”
What’s really on trial at the Gaza Tribunal in Sarajevo, he explained, is something much broader. Speaking as a “casual and untimely observer, lawyer, graduate student, and practitioner of international law,” De Koulen pointed to the deeper issues: the erosion of basic international norms, the spread of harmful and destructive narratives, a sense of public amnesia and resignation, the rise of ultra-radical realism in global politics, and the normalisation of both injustice and irrational behaviour.
“But most importantly,” he added, “it’s the mutism and inaction of our world leaders in the face of unquestionable war crimes and the inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people.” For De Koulen, the tribunal stands as a symbolic trial - not just of the crimes themselves, but of the fear, cowardice, or indifference that has kept too many public intellectuals and politicians silent. “This Gaza Tribunal,” he concluded, “definitely feels like a safe haven to discuss and raise awareness about these issues.”
Fear of retaliation
Over four days in Sarajevo, the Gaza Tribunal convened experts, witnesses, and activists to examine the crisis in Gaza through legal, political, and ethical lenses. The first day focused on international law, with panels discussing the Nakba, patterns of genocide, and specific acts of violence. Testimonies from Gaza-based researchers and healthcare workers highlighted the human impact, while presentations addressed issues like apartheid and forced population transfers.
The second day delved into geopolitics, scrutinizing the failures of international institutions and the criminalization of protest. Discussions emphasized the need for alternative jurisprudential paradigms and drew lessons from anti-apartheid movements. The third day explored historical and philosophical aspects, examining ideological underpinnings of genocide and the role of media in shaping narratives. A media roundtable concluded the event, reinforcing the importance of storytelling in confronting injustice.
But not many among those present agree to speak with the media, considering how polarising the subject is. The team behind the initiative is also very careful in protecting the identities of those who support it or attend it. After streaming the event for four days, the organizers have removed the majority of the videos online.
“We try to protect the witnesses, like journalists, doctors and others who speak in front of the jury or who submit evidence,” Koroglu from the Gaza Tribunal told La Converse.
“It is very important for our legal department to grant confidence for all of them, as Israel has sometimes deliberately targeted those who openly speak up,” Koroglu added.
Even those who do speak up try to keep a bit of distance. “My sympathy, directed primarily to the suffering of palestinians still held up in the hell of Gaza, but also for Jewish friends in Montreal and their cherished Israel ideal, commands me, even while I'm supposed to be vacationing, to participate as an observer in this necessary endeavour of the Gaza Tribunal,” De Koulen said.
He hopes that the tribunal could “possibly enlighten the Western public to the perils of borrowing the path of inhumanism, disconnection to the suffering of ordinary peoples, disrespect for basic morality and the rule of international law, and the growing isolation of Israel on the world stage.”
Comparison to Srebrenica genocide
Koroglu told La Converse that Sarajevo as a venue was chosen on purpose, since another genocide unfolded in Bosnia and Herzegovina three decades ago. In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces have overrun UN-declared safe zone of Srebrenica, after which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in what was categorized as genocide by international and local courts.
“It was very important for us to learn what was happening here,” Koroglu said, noting the special panel called “From Srebrenica to Gaza”, held on the final day.
“Three decades ago we have seen a genocide here, another one is unfolding in front of our eyes in Gaza,” he said, adding that “the aim was to learn from these examples and prevent genocides from happening in the future.”
Among the panelists who spoke about Srebrenica genocide was former Grand Mufti of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mustafa Ceric.
Following the panel, Ceric spoke to the press with a profound sense of urgency and reflection. Drawing a direct line between the tragedies of the past and the crisis unfolding today, he urged listeners to see the situation in Gaza not in isolation, but as part of a painful continuum of history’s darkest chapters.
For him, understanding Gaza’s suffering means confronting three monumental crimes that scarred the 20th century - the Holocaust, the Nakba, and the genocide in Srebrenica.
“The Holocaust is solemnly remembered every year on January 27 at Auschwitz,” Ceric said. “Srebrenica, too, earned its resolution and a global Remembrance Day just last year, on May 24. Yet the Nakba, which began on May 15, 1948, still struggles for the recognition it so desperately needs - even though the United Nations passed a resolution in 2023 showing solidarity with Palestinians.” His words were heavy with disappointment and resolve.
The Nakba, which means "catastrophe" in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948, during the creation of the state of Israel.
When war broke out between Jewish and Arab forces after the end of British rule in Palestine, over 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee or were expelled from their homes. More than 400 villages were destroyed or emptied, and many of those who left were never allowed to return.
For Palestinians, the Nakba is not just a historical event. It marks the beginning of ongoing loss, statelessness, and exile. It’s remembered every year on May 15, the day after Israel’s independence is celebrated.
Pausing to look beyond legal tribunals and international courts, Ceric posed a haunting question: “Why is this happening, especially to Muslims? This is not only a question for The Hague but for all of us. We understand the reasons, yet we must ask ourselves why we continue to allow it.”
Invoking a powerful hadith, a quote from the Prophet Muhammad, he reminded, “Help your brother, whether he is the oppressor or the oppressed.” But then, challenging assumptions, he clarified, “Helping the oppressor means stopping him from committing further crimes.”
Turning his gaze toward the West, Ceric also delivered a piercing message: “Right now, Israel’s best friend is the one who will halt its genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. That is the greatest act of help Israel can receive, not only for its own people but for Jews worldwide. Because the consequences of this conflict will not spare Israel. In fact, Israel itself will suffer the greatest harm from what is happening in Gaza today.”