Legal experts eye UN General Assembly action on Gaza

Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza travel in a donkey-drawn cart loaded with their belongings while they head south as the Israeli military prepares to relocate residents to the southern part of the enclave, in Gaza City, August 18, 2025. (Reuters)

• Addressing a news conferences in Istanbul, its leader Richard Falk said the tribunal called on governments to act before it was “too late”

ISTANBUL: The UN General Assembly must be empowered to urgently intervene in Gaza and send a protective military force to help its devastated population, the non-government Gaza Tribunal project said Monday.
The body, which groups international academics, rights advocates and legal experts, was set up in London in 2024 aiming to mobilize public opinion and pressure governments “to end the genocide” in Gaza.
Addressing a news conferences in Istanbul, its leader Richard Falk, a former UN rapporteur for Palestinian rights, said the tribunal called on governments to act before it was “too late.”
The aim was “the empowerment of the UN General Assembly to organize a protective, armed intervention in Gaza to overcome the disruption of humanitarian aid and the continuing devastation and destruction of the people,” said the 94-year-old American emeritus law professor.
Since the Hamas October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, Gaza has been hit by a huge Israeli military onslaught that aid agencies say has caused a dire humanitarian crisis in the Palestinians territory.
“We urge governments around the world to take immediate steps to empower the veto-free UN General Assembly that ... so far has been frustrated in its attempts to end the Gaza genocide,” the group said in a statement.
Israel has repeatedly denied there is any genocide in Gaza or that it blocks humanitarian aid. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that calls to end the war “harden” the Hamas resolve to fight the conflict.
Falk said the move could be established through policy instruments like the 1950 “United for peace” resolution or the more recent “Responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine.
The first lets the UN General Assembly act when the Security Council fails to maintain international peace and security. It was adopted at US urging in the early stages of the 1950-53 Korean war to sidestep a systematic Soviet Security Council veto.
The R2P was passed in 2005 aiming to prevent a repeat of the horrors of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.
“If we do not take action of a serious and drastic kind at this time, (it) will be too late to save the surviving people,” said Falk who worked for decades on Palestinian rights and was repeatedly denounced for his harsh stance on Israel.
He said Gaza Tribunal hoped to have the issue added to the agenda of next month’s UN General Assembly in New York.
World powers are deeply divided over whether military intervention to halt atrocities is justified, with critics seeing it as a smokescreen for meddling in other nations’ internal affairs.
Amnesty International on Monday accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza — a charge Israel has repeatedly rejected.
The 2023 Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 61,944 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza which the UN considers reliable.