Justice for atrocities must matter
by Yael Vias Gvirsman
As Robert Jackson, the chief US prosecutor, reminded the world at Nuremberg: “Civilisation cannot tolerate [these acts] being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”
The trials at Nuremberg and, later, the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, stand as defining moments in modern legal and moral history. They weren’t just about punishment – they were about truth. About ensuring the world could not turn away from atrocities. These trials gave voice to victims and established a vital principle: that law must rise above vengeance, and that atrocities must not go unaddressed.
Today, we must ask: Does justice still matter? Many people ask me with disbelief: “Can justice actually occur? Is an armed response or military force not the only way to secure redress?”
Appallingly, as we marked 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide this summer, a former attorney from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) reflected that in the five decades between Nuremberg and Yugoslavia, there was little expectation for accountability. Since the ICTY, the expectation has shifted – there is now a demand for justice, and a commitment to securing it. Fact-finding missions collect and preserve evidence before courts exist. Legal teams begin long before tribunals are seated.
As an international criminal lawyer with over 20 years of experience litigating atrocities in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Ukraine, Darfur, Ivory Coast and more – and as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors – I say yes to the sceptics, unreservedly. Justice is not a luxury. It is what makes freedom durable. It is what separates civilisation from chaos. And it is the only path we have when faced with horror – be it in Ukraine, Syria, Israel or Gaza.
We are now witnessing a painful moment in our shared global history. The 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas were not just acts of terror. They were systematic, sadistic atrocities carried out with clear intent: to destroy life and dignity. And yet, the attack continues. Forty-eight hostages remain in Gaza. Their captivity is a choice – a continued, conscious crime that unfolds by the hour.
At the same time, Israeli society is being internally fractured; fighting to preserve Jewish values, to which the sanctity of life and human dignity are key; as the saying goes: “Where there are no Men, be a man, a mensch.”
As defenders of rule-based order, and as human beings, silence is not an option. A call for action is not enough. Action is the only acceptable response.
In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, I founded October 7: Justice Without Borders, a public interest, Israel-based, not-for-profit, pro bono law firm focused exclusively on victim and survivor justice and the accountability of perpetrators and accomplices. Action began within hours of the attack, responding to calls from survivors displaced and families of the missing – there were over 330,000 internally displaced and 3,000 missing as a direct result of the attack – with action being undertaken for the long road toward authoritative judicial recognition, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition – in The Hague, Germany, France, Israel, the US, Geneva or elsewhere.
O7J is devoted to global, strategic impact litigation to end impunity on behalf of the 7 October victims and survivors. Our expertise is rooted in over 20 years of experience in international criminal law and in seeking accountability for atrocities committed worldwide. We begin with facts, then legal classification and then response. Our action is directly led and recognised by war crimes prosecutors and UN human rights mechanisms in at least five different jurisdictions. Justice is not wishful thinking – it must be rigorous, deliberate and principled.
The harm of 7 October is threefold:
First, the attack itself. This was a large-scale, systematic assault involving extermination, murder, rape, hostage-taking, torture, wanton destruction, and the erasure of entire communities. Disturbing features included: attackers reportedly armed with drugs to disinhibit their worst impulses; modified weapons, like rocket-propelled grenades weighted to cause greater suffering; the use of highly flammable materials to ensure destruction; and the live dissemination of atrocities: executions, mutilations and kidnappings broadcast via social media.
The body of Shani Louk, who we have the life privilege to represent, being paraded lifeless on a truck, became an emblem of these horrors. Her family learned her fate through Telegram videos; only later were they told she had been murdered in Israel.
Second, denial. Victims who lost everything – their lives, loved ones, homes and communities – are now being denied truth and recognition. In some circles, the atrocities are being justified or contextualised – as if mass murder could be mitigated by political analysis. Such denial deepens trauma and robs survivors of dignity.
Third, the grotesque violation of privacy and memory. The horror was not only committed, it was made public. Families were forced to witness their loved ones’ final moments. Sexual violence extended to forced nudity, desecration of the dead, and public humiliation. Denial forces survivors into an impossible position: to prove the truth of their suffering without further violating the memory of their dead. The tension between the personal and the collective; the private lives of survivors and their recovery, and national recovery are interdependent, as well as, conflicted; a dynamic that remains overlooked. At times, a survivor is faced with the cruel dilemma of wishing to internalise and process, or to bear witness vocally. The judicial process allows individuals to testify, while protecting the victim at their pace, away from the cameras.
One woman we represent lost both her 80-year-old mother and her 12-year-old daughter – slaughtered together. In her mother’s burnt-out home, still uninhabitable, she told us: “There was no mercy that day.”
This trauma will not fade in a generation. Our generation demands the October Trials.
Yet impunity endures: Hamas remains armed and the hostages remain captive. The international response? Often muted, constrained by politics. This is not due to a lack of legal mechanisms. It is fear. Paralysis disguised as neutrality. An erosion of moral clarity.
Justice cannot be selective. Civilians in Gaza are suffering deeply – since March 2025, access to basic needs has collapsed. Women and children suffer terribly. Their protection matters.
Extremist calls within the Israeli government since May 2025 to cleanse Gaza ethnically and resettle it have further strained domestic tensions within Israel. Up until then, a coalition of the reasonable, which included the opposition parties, effectively silenced and barred extremists from participating in the government’s war cabinet.
But these shocking voices have now become redundant following the announcement of President Trump’s 20-step proposal, backed by Arab and western nations, which is committed to Palestinians rebuilding Gaza under the temporary governance of a multinational force. It also demands all terrorist groups in Gaza disarm, a process of “de-Hamasification” and the renunciation of violence. Will Hamas agree to lose its power over the fate of 2.5 million civilians, or will it be forced to do so?
Within Israel, the reality is that, since the 7 October attacks, the nation has been fighting back – to eradicate jihadist, nihilist enemies who launched a full-fledged, multi-front war aimed at erasing us from the map. This attack targets every Jewish community worldwide and threatens every rule-based democracy. All this, while the hostages’ lives are hanging by a thread. Hamas called it “the Al Aqsa flood” but, as the scriptures teach us, love is stronger. “מים רבים לא יכבו את האהבה” (“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it” Song of Solomon 8.)
We must hold moral complexity without equivocation and hold on to our values based on love and compassion.
The same moral clarity must apply to the atrocities committed earlier this summer in Syria, where over 3,000 Druze civilians were reportedly massacred and 80 women abducted. There are reasonable grounds to believe these were perpetrated by Syrian government forces and/or their proxies. These allegations against the Syrian government, which is strong backed by President Erdogan’s Turkey, must be urgently investigated. If these crimes are not named and prosecuted, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.
If we fail to name atrocities – whether they occur in Nir Oz, Kyiv or Sweida – we dismantle the very foundation of justice, a foundation of an enlightened society. Justice is not vengeance. It is restoration. It is truth-telling. It is, at its core, the moral infrastructure of democracy. In her call to bring the remaining hostages home, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said with piercing clarity: “This is your WHY, Israel.” That refusal to let terror define identity is something we all must support.
Our response to atrocity must be law, not lethargy. Principle, not paralysis. I call on democratic governments, including here in the UK, to support initiatives like October 7: Justice Without Borders. To strengthen international accountability. To recognise the distinct horror of 7 October. To draw universal red lines. And to demand justice for all victims, everywhere.
Justice is not weakness. It is our shared strength. And it is our duty. Now – more than ever.
Yael Vias Gvirsman is founder of October 7: Justice Without Borders. She is an expert in international criminal and humanitarian law, with a vast experience of 20 years in litigation and representing victims of crimes against humanity around the world. This essay is part of LFI’s Voices for Change series.
