A report led by progressive British parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn and submitted Wednesday to the International Criminal Court recommends that the Hague-based tribunal investigate UK government officials complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“The Gaza Tribunal report exposes the full scale of Britain’s complicity in genocide,” said Corbyn, a former Labour leader who represents Islington North for the leftist Your Party. “Complicity demands consequences. That’s why, today, we submitted The Gaza Tribunal report to the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

“The report concludes that the British government has failed in its fundamental obligation to prevent genocide, has been complicit in atrocity crimes, and in some instances has even been an active participant in these crimes,” Corbyn wrote in a foreword to the publication. “The report recommends a full investigation by the International Criminal Court into Britain’s complicity and participation in genocide.”

According to the report, “Britain has played a vital role in Israeli military operations in Gaza,” including through weapons sales, Royal Air Force surveillance flights, diplomatic support, and failure to sanction Israeli officials responsible for a war that United Nations experts, jurists, scholars, national and other governments, and others say is genocidal.

Report co-author and international law professor Shahd Hammouri said: “In our hands we have evidence that British officials knowingly hid the truth and distorted the truth. They had the legal advice and chose to overlook it. British citizens in good conscience who sought to uphold their legal and moral obligations of standing up against power were threatened with their livelihoods and asked to either quit their jobs or shut the hell up."

In 2024, the ICC issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also in The Hague, is weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa and supported by an increasing number of nations.

“Israel has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza,” the tribunal’s report states. “The genocide in Gaza must be understood within its historical context: as part of a decadeslong, ongoing, and systematic effort to destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part. We heard from a range of witnesses who described in devastating detail the human and social reality of displacement, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.”

The report notes the deliberate destruction of Gaza’s healthcare and education systems, targeting of journalists, and famine caused by Israel’s “complete siege” of the embattled strip.

The Gaza Tribunal report notes the UK’s legal obligations under international law, which include:

• The immediate suspension of arms transfers and related military exports where there is a serious risk of use in genocide, crimes against humanity, or grave international humanitarian law violations;
• The suspension of intelligence sharing, training, and other security cooperation that could materially assist unlawful acts;
• Measures to ensure nonrecognition and nonassistance in respect of Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, including review of its existing trade and investment relations with Israel and Israeli entities;
• Support for humanitarian relief and opposition to policies producing famine conditions; and
• Full cooperation with international bodies of accountability, including the ICC, ICJ, and the relevant United Nations special rapporteurs, among others.

The publication of the Gaza Tribunal report—which is related in spirit and method to a separate Gaza Tribunal headed by former UN special rapporteur Richard Falk—follows last year’s finding by the Corbyn-led body that Britain is complicit in the Gaza genocide.

The UK government has also faced international condemnation for persecuting members of Palestine Action and other activists. Last month, the British High Court ruled that the government illegally banned the protest group, some of whose members nearly died while on recent hunger strikes.

The report also comes as Israeli forces continue killing, maiming, and forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, where the ICJ found in 2024 that Israel is guilty of illegal occupation and apartheid.

To date, more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza, according to officials there. Around 2 million others have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.