Israel’s October 7 tribunal: Show trial of Palestinians or justice?

Observers describe a climate in which the chances of justice in the military tribunals are slim. Israel approved the establishment of a special military tribunal to try Palestinians accused of participating in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel earlier this month, and will give the body the power to impose the death penalty. But analysts, campaigners, and international organisations – including the United Nations – have all questioned whether there will be any real justice delivered by the tribunal, and instead consider it a way of seeking revenge on imprisoned Palestinians. The impact of the October 7 attack, in which 1,139 were killed and 250 abducted, was amplified in Israel through endless repetition of videos of the attack. Al Jazeera’s own investigation unit has found that stories of atrocities committed on October 7 – some of the false – were used to justify the genocide launched on Gaza after the attack, which has so far killed more than 72,600 Palestinians. Some Israeli parliamentarians have made their positions clear on what they hope will be the result of the televised trials of an estimated 300 detained Palestinians. Many of those detained are civilians, human rights groups say, including prominent figures like hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. Palestinian detainees have also been physically abused and raped, with dozens dying in Israeli prisons. According to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, one of the co-sponsors of the bill that established the tribunal, the legislation was “one of the most important moments of the current Knesset [parliament]”. “One can feel that we are doing the right thing by finding a way to unite at this moment, even though we are on the eve of elections and despite all the disagreements that exist,” Levin added, referring to the cross-party support for the bill. Victor’s justice UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk publicly called for the legislation establishing the tribunal to be repealed, saying that justice could not be delivered by any process that failed to meet international standards. The International Bar Association (IBA) raised concerns about the possibility of a fair trial. “This risk [of a lack of a fair trial] is heightened by reports of coercive practices in security-related cases, which can amount to torture or other ill-treatment and lead to unreliable information, false confessions, wrongful convictions, and serious miscarriages of justice,” the IBA said. Rights groups, such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli rights group B’tselem, have also condemned the legal framework underpinning the bill. “People in Israel need justice, but I don’t know if this it, or if the Israeli state as it currently stands is capable of delivering it,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with Chatham House, said, referencing the filmed abuse of international Gaza flotilla activists by Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir that went entirely without punishment within Israel. “I don’t have any sympathy with the Nukhba [members of the Hamas military wing that reportedly led the October 7 attack], but justice has to be as much about ourselves and our humanity as them and what they did. I worry that this might be vengeance.” Palestinian? Guilty Israeli politicians have consistently blamed all Palestinians for the October 7 attack. Addressing the press just days after the attack, Israeli President Isaac Herzog laid the blame for the assault on all of the men, women, and children of Gaza, telling reporters: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true”. Over the years since, equating Palestinians with “terrorists” by government ministers such as Ben-Gvir, or his fellow far-right politician, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have become routine. Even attempts by Palestinian politicians in the Israeli parliament to speak in Arabic in the lead up to the passing of the tribunal legislation were enough to elicit howls of “shame” from the public gallery, who appeared to immediately equate speaking Arabic with supporting “terrorism”. “We know that Israeli officials blame all of Gaza for October 7,” Hassan Jabareen, the founder of Palestinian legal rights organisation Adalah, told Al Jazeera. “Their president, a supposed moderate, even said it. Gaza is Israel’s collective enemy. This isn’t new,” he said, referencing legislation that existed before October 7 that allowed the Israeli military to shoot people in Gaza without legal culpability. “Now we have a military tribunal that is allowed to hand down the death penalty based on secret evidence, where the indicted aren’t present throughout the hearings, and none of the typical systems of fairness are applied, and who voted for this? A huge majority in the Knesset did.” Dodging blame Support among Jewish Israelis for the tribunal, and any form of punishment meted out to Palestinians from Gaza, is overwhelming.