Top Gaza lawyer who survived Israeli air strike seeks prosecution of UK citizens
Raji Sourani
Sondos Asem and Imran Mulla report in Middle East Eye on 9 April 2025:
Raji Sourani, founder and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading Palestinian lawyers. In early 2024, he narrowly survived an Israeli air strike in Gaza which blew up his two-storey home. In late February that year, he crossed into Egypt with his family.
Since 2015, Sourani has led the legal team representing Palestinian victims at the International Criminal Court. And in the past year, he has been working with South Africa’s legal team in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Now the lawyer is in Britain with a new aim – seeking the prosecution of 10 British citizens accused of committing war crimes in Gaza with the Israeli military.
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On Monday, Sourani joined a team of legal experts at New Scotland Yard in London in submitting a 240-page report to the Metropolitan Police’s war crimes team.
The report was filed on behalf of his organisation, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC).
‘We give very serious evidence’
The 10 people accused include Israeli dual nationals. They are suspected of crimes including murder, extermination, attacking civilians and the deportation or forcible transfer of a population.
“We are here for a very special mission,” Sourani told Middle East Eye on Monday, “to say to the police that there are British [citizens] who are involved in these crimes – war crimes, persecution, crimes against humanity – in the Gaza Strip, and these people should be held accountable.