UK politicians and charities call for sanctions on Israel as Starmer’s Gaza legacy slammed
The UK Parliament
Oscar Rickett reports in Middle East Eye on 15 July 2026:
Over 80 British MPs and lords have called on their government to impose comprehensive sanctions on Israel, as a collection of charities slammed outgoing prime minister Keir Starmer’s legacy on Palestine.
In a letter to the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, the politicians urge the government to act “in line with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on Israel”.
This Sunday, 19 July, will mark two years since the ICJ found that Israel’s decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was “unlawful”, and that its “near-complete separation” of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning “racial segregation” and “apartheid”.
“We urge the government to impose sanctions and other concrete measures to uphold its legal obligations under this ruling and wider international law,” the letter’s signatories, led by Labour MPs Imran Hussain and Richard Burgon, write.
On Wednesday, 17 British charities urged Andy Burnham, who is set to take over as prime minister from Starmer, “to take action to end Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians”. The charities, including Save the Children UK, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Islamic Relief and Amnesty International UK, said in a statement that Burnham must “take decisive action on Gaza and the occupied West Bank, warning that Palestinians cannot afford further political inaction”.
Assessing Starmer’s legacy on Palestine, Save the Children UK said: “History will remember your complicity.” The charity added: “Despite a partial arms suspension in 2024, Keir Starmer’s government has continued to enable Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians, their families and children through the supply of F-35 fighter jet parts.”
Israel deepens its occupation
Since the ICJ’s advisory opinion in July 2024, the politicians who signed the letter to Cooper – including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Green Party MPs Sian Berry and Hannah Spencer, New Labour minister Lord Peter Hain and Jewish Kindertransport refugee Lord Alf Dubs – say that Israel has “deepened its illegal occupation”.
Another signatory to the letter, former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, told MEE: “The Netanyahu government clearly believes it can act with impunity as it destroys any hope of a two-state solution with its total annexation of the West Bank. “The hope is that the incoming prime minister recognises that the UK government has a duty to act.”
Israel now controls over 60 percent of Gaza, which it has largely destroyed during its genocide. It has pushed further into Syria and into southern Lebanon under the pretext of fighting Hezbollah.