Complaint filed alleging UK ministers’ complicity in Israeli war crimes
ICJP Director Tayab Ali at a press conference, January 2024
Alex MacDonald and Dania Akkad report in Middle East Eye on 16 January 2024:
A UK-based advocacy group has filed a criminal complaint against senior UK politicians, including ministers, alleging their complicity in war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on Tuesday it handed over hard drives and evidence dossiers to the Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Unit last week.
“This is just the first tranche of our evidence and the first list of suspects… we will add further offences and further categories of suspects including commentators who continue to support war crimes,” Tayab Ali, director of the ICJP and head of international law at Bindmans LLP, told a press conference.
“Each account not only serves as evidence but also as a solemn reminder of the human cost of this conflict. We will accept nothing less than a thorough and impartial investigation into these allegations.”
The complaint, shared after a public request from the police for evidence of war crimes in Israel and Gaza, also implicates Israeli politicians and private British citizens, including some who travelled abroad to fight for the Israeli army.
The Met has come under criticism from Conservative voices, including former prime minister Boris Johnson, who have suggested their call for evidence is a politicisation of the force. Ali said on Tuesday that Johnson’s comments themselves amounted to unwelcome “political interference” in the work of the police.
The police have defended their efforts saying its war crimes team is obliged, under the Rome Statute, to support any investigations opened by the International Criminal Court that could involve British subjects.
The 78-page ICJP complaint features photographic evidence as well as harrowing eyewitness accounts, including from British citizens who were either present in Gaza after 7 October or have family members there who have provided them with information and evidence. The ICJP said it has kept the names of the politicians and individuals confidential for legal reasons and as the police investigation proceeds.
One witness gave an account of his former primary school teacher who was killed alongside 20 relatives in their family home in northern Gaza, leaving no survivors. Another reported that his friend’s brother, who is a doctor at Al Shifa Hospital, only learned that his wife and three children had died when he found their bodies in the hospital’s corridors.
A third told of his 91-year-old grandmother, suffering from dementia and largely bed-ridden, who was allegedly shot and killed by Israeli soldiers when they occupied the home where she was sheltering in Jabalia refugee camp.
The dossier also includes evidence supporting allegations that the Israeli army used white phosphorous against civilians in Gaza, contrary to international law.
Since the beginning of the war on 7 October – when Hamas killed around 1,140 people in an operation in southern Israel – at least 24,100 Palestinians have been killed, with at least 7,000 missing and more than 60,000 injured.
The complaint argues that the named British ministers are responsible for aiding and abetting war crimes through their continued military support of Israel and their moral encouragement. Given evidence that UK weapons and intelligence are used in operations that “fail to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality and target civilians”, the complaint says the police should further investigate the culpability of listed UK lawmakers.
The majority of those named in the complaint live in Israel, but ICJP says many are officials who travel frequently and has requested that the police monitor their entry into the UK.