PHILADELPHIA (May 28, 2025) – On May 31, Philadelphia peace and justice organizations will hold a “People’s Tribunal on War Crimes & Genocide in Gaza.” A team of human rights attorneys and international legal experts representing the people of Philadelphia will present the case that U.S. government officials – including the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation – are complicit in funding and supporting Israel’s war crimes and genocide in Gaza. The People’s Tribunal will take place at the Friends Center (1501 Cherry Street in Philadelphia) on Saturday, May 31, 2025 from 9:00 AM- 6:00 PM. Participants can also attend virtually by registering here.
“Israel would not be able to carry out its brutal genocide against the Palestinian people without the financial, military, and political support of the United States,” said Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). “Senator Fetterman, Senator McCormick, and the entire Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation are complicit in the deaths of more than 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and are complicit in Israel’s starvation of the entire population. More than 60 children have died from malnutrition and many more will die if we continue on this course. I am testifying at this tribunal to hold the U.S. government to account and to call for an arms embargo on Israel and an end to occupation and apartheid.” Ajlouny, a Palestinian-American Quaker who has led AFSC since 2017, will testify about her organization’s efforts to provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza and her own experiences with life under Israeli occupation.
The People’s Tribunal is hosted by Fridays @ Fetterman’s, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), and endorsed by over thirty organizations. Presenting attorneys include: King Downing, AFSC staff and Human Rights-Racial Justice Center founder; Jonathan Kuttab, Palestinian-American human rights attorney and international law expert; and Lewis Webb, Jr., AFSC’s Just Peace Director. Palestinians in and from Gaza as well as humanitarian aid workers with on-the-ground experience in Gaza will deliver testimony about the human costs of Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide.
People’s Tribunals are forums of justice organized by social movements and organizations to adjudicate human rights abuse cases against states, state actors, and state-backed corporations. The judgments rendered through people’s tribunals are non-binding, as their decisions are not backed by the force of state authority. "When international tribunals and organizations fail to act, and governments refuse to take their responsibilities seriously it falls to civil society to act to point out the serious crimes, like genocide, which their own governments fail to oppose, or even are complicit in perpetuating,” said Jonathan Kuttab, Principal Legal Advisor to the Philadelphia People’s Tribunal.
The Philadelphia People’s Tribunal has assembled a team of attorneys, who will present the case against the U.S. government and its agents. The tribunal has recruited nine representatives of the Philadelphia community to serve as jurors. The jurors will listen to witness testimony and review evidence to decide if there is sufficient proof of U.S. government complicity with war crimes and genocide in Gaza and if agents of the U.S. government should therefore be held accountable.
Fridays @ Fetterman’s co-founder and co-coordinator, Terry Rumsey, explains that the organization is holding the Philadelphia People’s Tribunal because "the U.S. government and our own U.S. senators from Pennsylvania have ignored well-documented findings about Israel’s war crimes in Gaza issued by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and many international humanitarian and human rights organizations. The people of Philadelphia are obligated to hold our government and its agents accountable for crimes committed in our name—and with our tax dollars— against the Palestinian people.”
###
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.