The British Palestine Committee is accusing the UK of failure to uphold international law through its continued military support to Israel in a report published Wednesday. The report criticized what it calls British “military collaboration with Israel,” highlighting the UK’s complicity in Israel’s human rights violations.

The British Military Collaboration Report outlined that the UK is legally obligated under international law to “suspend military cooperation and trade with Israel,” and “act to prevent genocide” in light of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and the war in Gaza. It focused on the British military’s willing collaboration with Israel given that the UK is not directly involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It says that the UK has played a pivotal and “influential role” however, through its “validation of arms licenses”, procurement of weapons, and “British military bases”, particularly in Cyprus. The report says that the UK’s involvement in other conflicts involving Israel, mainly in Yemen and Iran, has indirectly aided and protected Israel.

The report states:

Since the September 2024 review, the government has issued a further 34 arms export licenses to Israel… [Foreign Secretary David] Lammy has also claimed that a lack of information around events in Gaza has prevented the government from concluding whether Israel has abided by international law on proportionality in conflict.

By way of example, the report mentions that in 2024, the UK foreign secretary at the time, David Cameron, defended the decision to continue supplying arms to Israel during its military offensive in Rafah, which resulted in civilian causalities and forced displacement of 1 million Palestinians.

This emphasis on international law is particularly important in light of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) actions against Israel for its alleged human rights violations war crimes, and genocide against Palestinians since the 7 October 2023, contrary to the Geneva Conventions.  

The British Palestine Committee concluded its report with recommendations that the UK must take to prevent legal action against it and “condemnation by international bodies, sanctions, and the prosecution of individual politicians and officials”. It urges the UK to immediately end all military collaboration and activities with Israel, impose a “full two-way arms embargo”, impose various sanctions against Israel to pressure the country into compliance with ICJ obligations,  to “support the South African submission at the ICJ” in its genocide proceedings, and lastly, to “push for the arrest and prosecution” of Israeli officials at the ICC.