Gaza genocide: Why we seek to have a British-Israeli soldier prosecuted
A woman holds a placard reading ‘Infant Death Force’ as demonstrators gather in support for Palestinians in London on 11 October 2025
Mutahir Ahmed writes in Middle East Eye on 24 October 2025:
As western leaders jostle and preoccupy themselves with US President Donald Trump’s so-called “peace plan”, the media buzz has started looking to “what’s next”, rather than reflecting on the 734 days of genocide Palestinians have endured.
Trump’s plan is filled with red flags about eroding Palestinian agency, about neocolonial British-American control over Gaza, and about failing to stop Israel’s continued violations of the ceasefire. These concerns are all vitally important, but equally important is accountability for the perpetrators of the genocide, from the most senior generals to the most junior foot soldier.
That is why the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has applied for a court summons to prosecute a dual national British-Israeli soldier for allegedly enlisting in the Israel army, in violation of Section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.
The individual is believed to have served in an Israeli army unit on the Lebanese border before deployment to the Occupied West Bank.
Abandoning the survivors
It is important to note that whilst Israelis are subject to conscription, British and British-Israeli citizens who served in the Israeli army during the genocide have done so entirely voluntarily. Israel imposes no obligation on its dual-nationals to serve. The individual in this case decided of his own volition to join the Israeli army and participate in the genocide.
Since the beginning of the genocide, ICJP has collected evidence of war crimes by the Israeli government, and evidence of British-Israeli soldiers fighting for the Israeli army.
We submitted evidence to Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit in January 2024, but we can no longer wait for the UK government to take the initiative to hold complicit actors to account. Inaction means abandoning the survivors of genocide and apartheid.
Not only does the UK government continue to withhold intelligence gathered from its RAF Akrotiri surveillance flights over Gaza – along with other classified data that could help identify war crimes and perpetrators – but the current government and previous government are also actively complicit in the genocide themselves, through political cover and the continued supply of arms.