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With access to unpublished internal Whitehall documents, Dispatches reveals how the UK government responded to alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
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00:03Tonight on Dispatches, as Israel stands accused of committing war crimes in Gaza,
00:09including targeting civilians and indiscriminate bombing,
00:14we investigate how the UK government processed mountains of evidence and what it did with it.
00:21I would argue that we were choosing to accept Israel's word,
00:25and that is quite a chilling thing for me to say.
00:29Dispatches has obtained hundreds of pages of internal Foreign Office legal assessments of Israel's conduct.
00:36My impression from looking at all this material is that the British government has adopted what looks like a methodology,
00:43but one designed to produce a result that no violations are taking place.
00:49So did politicians ignore warnings about alleged Israeli war crimes?
00:55Look, I, I, I, the reason for not answering this question, I can't recall every single bit of paper that's
01:00been put up front of me.
01:03Whistleblowers in Whitehall say they were silenced.
01:07That's the whole reason why I stepped down, because I witnessed illegal activity at the heart of government.
01:16As far as government concerned, if they could brush it under the carpet, that's where it would go and stay.
01:36Whistleblowers in Whitehall say they were silenced.
01:36On October the 7th, 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country's history.
01:51Around 1,200 were killed, with 251 people taken hostage into Gaza, among them two British
02:01citizens.
02:03The shocking attack was met with widespread condemnation.
02:07Countries around the world rallied around Israel, including the UK.
02:13The UK, for a long time, has been one of Israel's strongest allies in supporting its right
02:19to self-defence, and indeed providing the kinds of equipment that Israel has used to
02:24defend itself from these appalling attacks.
02:26In the days that followed, the Foreign Office was briefed on Israel's plans to attack Hamas.
02:32I remember talking to a senior Israeli, saying, you know, what is the strategy here?
02:37And he said, we're going to go down into the tunnels and we're going to kill them.
02:42On October the 9th, Israel announced a complete siege on Gaza, cutting off water, food and
02:49power to more than 2 million Palestinians.
03:12Israel vowed mighty vengeance against Hamas.
03:15In the first month, Israel's assault killed over 9,000 Palestinians.
03:30The world was watching mass civilian casualties in real time, and evidence of possible war crimes.
03:41On the 24th of October, the UN Secretary-General sounded the alarm.
03:47Excellencies, even war as rules.
03:52The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and
03:58wholesale destruction of neighbourhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming.
04:09As pressure grew on the UK to condemn alleged violations by Israel, on the 13th of November,
04:16Prime Minister Sunak installed his predecessor, David Cameron, as the new Foreign Secretary.
04:29We have obtained assessments produced by the unit the Foreign Office set up to investigate
04:35these alleged violations.
04:37The International Humanitarian Law Compliance Assessment Cell, or IHLCAP cell.
04:42They reviewed evidence of possible war crimes, including the hundreds of videos shown here.
04:50Their assessments informed the Foreign Secretary's decisions on whether the UK could sell arms
04:55to Israel.
04:56The UK cannot export weapons to any country that's breaking international humanitarian law.
05:05One of these videos has a direct link to a family living in London.
05:16Ghetan Matala Alian is from Gaza, but has lived here since 2018, with her husband and daughters.
05:27In November 2023, most of her relatives were sheltering in a house in Nisirat, central Gaza, in an area
05:35that was supposed to be safe.
05:44Suddenly, we saw a video, people were under the rubble and their legs were out.
05:52When I watched this video, I was like, oh my God, poor this family.
05:58I wish that they'd be strong.
06:09To realize later that this is my aunt's family house, and those legs are my people's one.
06:28It was very hard even for me to watch this, to hear how many members of your family were killed
06:38in that one strike.
06:3948 persons, so we have 48 birthdays.
06:45We have 48 life, dreams.
06:50Each moment we remember them.
07:06And those babies were only four months when it happened, so this is Sari, my uncle's baby, and Abd al
07:16-Hakim, Dima's baby.
07:18So they were only four months, and they were both killed.
07:29And just one moment, you lost everything.
07:34It's too hard, you know.
07:47Early reports of the strike on the Eliane family home were included in an evidence log submitted to the government.
08:02When assessing weapons export licenses, the government considers Israel's military conduct, humanitarian relief, and its treatment of detainees.
08:14The IHL cell did not make a specific finding about the strike on Khitam's family.
08:21But it did on this incident on the 18th of November, 2023.
08:29An Israeli airstrike on Al Fakhoura School in Jabalye refugee camp.
08:35At least 24 Palestinians were killed here, among them women and children.
08:42The IHL cell found this incident was not a possible war crime.
08:48Citing a lack of sufficient information, despite the UN saying the school was a shelter for displaced civilians,
08:55was clearly marked, and its coordinates had been given to the Israeli military.
09:01When asked about both these strikes, the Israeli military said they are currently under review.
09:08We showed these assessments to one of the world's leading authorities on international human rights and criminal law.
09:16Israel has previously accused Professor Shabbas of clear and documented bias against it.
09:23An accusation that Shabbas, who comes from a family of Holocaust survivors, rejects.
09:34First of all, this is not a trial where we're trying to determine who's going to go to jail for
09:3910 or 20 years.
09:40This is in a context of an assessment that's used to make political decisions, policy decisions.
09:46And so the question of the amount of evidence that you have in the context is different.
09:53I think the fact that this is a school is not really so, sort of relevant.
09:59It's just the fact that it's a building where non-combatants have fled for safety.
10:05Unless there's something to indicate that this is being used for a military purpose,
10:11it's an attack on a civilian object.
10:17So it's very, very plausible, very likely that this is a violation of international law and that it's an attack
10:24on something that's not a military object.
10:33Order, order. Lord Cameron, Sir Philip, thank you ever so much for joining us today.
10:37In January 2024, David Cameron was questioned about the government's response to the crisis by the Foreign Affairs Committee.
10:46By this point, over 23,000 Palestinians had been killed and Israel had blockaded Gaza for three months.
10:56If Israel had the power to turn the water back on that they turned off, surely that is a flagrant
11:04breach of international humanitarian law.
11:07Well, I'm not a lawyer. My view is they ought to switch it on because the north of Gaza, the
11:13conflict is now effectively over there.
11:15So you've never had a piece of paper put in front of you by a foreign office lawyer that says
11:19that Israel is in breach of its international humanitarian commitments under international humanitarian law?
11:25Look, the reason for not answering this question, I can't recall every single bit of paper that's been put in
11:29front of me.
11:29I see I look at everything. I mean, of course, there are lots of things that have happened where you
11:33think, well, surely that is that was something that shouldn't have happened.
11:36And so I don't want to answer that question.
11:40Now dispatchers can reveal what legal advice David Cameron had received.
11:45Only a month before giving evidence in Parliament, he had been sent two separate assessments concluding that Israel's blockade of
11:52Gaza was a possible breach of international humanitarian law.
11:57An email confirms he carefully considered all the information in one of them.
12:05Have you been made aware or seen any evidence or have reasonable grounds to believe that Israel has breached international
12:14humanity?
12:14I've seen lots of things that have been deeply concerning.
12:17Have you received legal advice?
12:20David Cameron evaded those questions ten times.
12:25I want to qualify instantly because it's not fair on the lawyers because, of course, the lawyers give you lots
12:29of advice.
12:30But I'm trying to be helpful by explaining how the job works.
12:33OK, I'll...
12:34Does that help at all?
12:35No.
12:38But, unfortunately, I think it's as good as we're going to get from you.
12:41Can I ask, finally...
12:43The government cannot, simply cannot allow itself to condemn Israel for breaches of international humanitarian law because it will be
12:52obliged, therefore, to act.
12:55Despite the Foreign Office IHL cell's warning, Cameron concluded that Israel was committed to complying with the laws of conflict.
13:04Ultimately, the cell gives advice, but the decision is a political one, made by the Foreign Secretary.
13:12He decided the UK was not obliged to act, so it could continue exporting arms to Israel.
13:19This kept the UK in step diplomatically with the US, its key ally, and Israel's biggest supporter.
13:26But not with the United Nations and human rights groups around the world.
13:34Coming up, a strike on a compound housing four British doctors in Gaza raises questions about just how seriously the
13:42UK government was interrogating Israel's actions.
13:46There's having a quiet word and there's making a big stink about it.
13:51And, for me, that's your big stink moment to say enough is enough.
14:04Dispatches has been examining the UK's response to Israel's attack on Gaza.
14:09We've obtained documents from a specialist unit within the Foreign Office, called the IHL cell.
14:14It was assessing Israel's conduct to determine whether the UK could continue its multi-million pound arms exports to Israel
14:22without breaking IHL, international humanitarian law.
14:26The UK's domestic and international legal obligations both make a call on the government to stop exporting when there is
14:35a clear risk that these weapons might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
14:43By January 2024, none of the assessments by the IHL cell had found any possible breaches in Israel's military conduct.
14:53But the fifth assessment described the humanitarian situation as dire and warned of impending famine.
15:00We are on balance no longer able to reach the conclusion that Israel is committed to compliance with IHL in
15:08relation to the humanitarian situation.
15:13Also included in this assessment was a strike involving British doctors who were in Gaza on an aid mission.
15:23I am concerned that in Almawasi, which is a supposed safe zone in Gaza, on the 18th of January, a
15:31UK charity, Medical Aid for Palestine and the IRC, had their compound bombed by an airstrike from an F-16
15:38jet.
15:41Four British doctors were staying in that compound.
15:45Four British doctors were staying in that compound.
15:46Amir Shwaib, a former British Army surgeon, was one of them.
15:50It's getting closer.
15:59The compound was in an Israeli designated humanitarian zone.
16:06I was just astonished, I couldn't believe that we had been attacked because first of all we coordinated, our location
16:16de-conflicted and it was known that we were a British charity with an entirely humanitarian role.
16:23The strike left a 13 metre deep crater outside the house.
16:30Now those are the windows.
16:32What were they targeting?
16:35It wasn't us.
16:36Because there was nothing else here.
16:38Were there any other possible targets in the area?
16:41Any houses nearby?
16:43I mean I can't see any in this photo.
16:44You can see that this building is essentially isolated.
16:48There are no other buildings for a hundred metres in any direction.
16:53So it can't be any case of mistaken identity.
16:57It is a war crime to target aid workers.
17:01Dispatchers have been told that Israeli officials, including the Prime Minister, have given conflicting accounts of the strike to the
17:07charity the doctors were working for and to foreign office staff.
17:11The Israeli military have told us the incident is under review.
17:14In their assessment covering this period, the IHL cell concluded there is not sufficient information to reach a view as
17:23to whether these incidents amount to a possible breach of IHL.
17:29You actually wrote then Foreign Secretary David Cameron asking for answers.
17:34What was his reply?
17:35His reply, I summarised, perhaps unkindly was, it was very unfortunate and they're looking into it.
17:43There's having a quiet word and there's making a big stink about it.
17:48These were international humanitarian workers, British people, and for me that's your big stink moment to say enough is enough.
17:57I do know that he did raise it and I do know that he got quite a hostile response when
18:05he raised it.
18:05I would argue that we were choosing to accept Israel's word.
18:10Can you imagine us taking Putin's word for it if a civilian area was bombed?
18:18Despite these incidents, David Cameron's final determination in the fifth IHL assessment was clear.
18:26Israel is committed to comply with IHL in general.
18:31So the flow of UK arms to Israel continued.
18:36The Palestinian charity Al Haqq took the UK government to the High Court, arguing weapons exports should stop as Israel
18:45was in clear violation of international law.
18:55We travelled to Ireland to meet lawyer Derbler Minogue, who took this case in which the government was required to
19:02disclose the IHL sales assessments.
19:05Whilst going through these, Derbler noticed a pattern, that in assessing Israel's conduct of hostilities, there was the repeated finding
19:13of insufficient information.
19:17When you're assessing whether an attack has violated the laws of armed conflict, it's necessary to assess what the attacker
19:25was aiming to do and what they were trying to do.
19:27And so the government is right when it says you can't just look at the consequences of an attack and
19:33work out that there was a violation.
19:34You need to know something about what the attacker was trying to do.
19:38But the government has taken it to the level of essentially hollowing out IHL of all its meaning.
19:45Because it says that in order to assess whether Israel might have violated the laws of armed conflict, you need
19:52to know the exact information about every single attack.
19:55They're applying this test, which is essentially incapable of allowing any kind of finding of breach unless the perpetrator tells
20:04you they breached IHL.
20:05Looking at this methodology that these assessments lay out, is there any way that Israel could be found in breach
20:16of international law?
20:18Not unless they admit it themselves. That's what this methodology says.
20:24In terms, if Israel either says nothing or says everything was fine, then everything's fine. There's no possible violation in
20:35the conduct of hostilities.
20:36Al Haq ultimately lost the case after 18 months of litigation, with the High Court ruling that questions of national
20:45security and foreign policy were for ministers in parliament, not the courts.
20:50We showed the UK government assessments to Professor William Shabazz.
20:59The fact that they claim the evidence is not conclusive, that there's insufficient information in so many of these cases,
21:07shows to me that they actually just are cooking this material so that they can walk away from it and
21:15turn their backs on what's obvious to any reasonable person.
21:19Because I don't think you need to be an expert to assess these things.
21:24My impression from looking at all this material is that the British government has adopted what looks like a methodology,
21:31but one designed to produce a result that no violations are taking place.
21:38Next, with the UK government still allowing weapons sales to Israel, hundreds of foreign office staff worry they could be
21:46breaking international law.
21:49I've never seen anything like it in my career, in my life.
22:07by a moment in my life.
22:08Dispatchers has obtained the foreign office internal assessments of Israel's conduct in Gaza.
22:18By March 2024, over 30,000 Palestinians had been killed, including 13,000 children.
22:30That same month, the government's own unit assessing Israel's conduct, the IHL cell,
22:36had reported Israel was not committed to complying with IHL, International Humanitarian Law,
22:42in the areas of humanitarian relief and the treatment of prisoners.
22:53The International Court of Justice had ordered Israel to take emergency measures to allow aid into Gaza,
23:00in a case brought by South Africa.
23:05This was the third order issued by the court.
23:11On 28 March, the court found that the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated
23:21further,
23:21in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities.
23:33As international and domestic pressure on the UK government increased,
23:37in March 2024, David Cameron made an intervention in the IHL cells reporting process.
23:44We've been told that responsibility for the assessments was moved from the Middle East section of the Foreign Office
23:49to David Cameron's political office at his request.
23:54The frequency of the reports was also reduced, from an average two- to three-week cycle to a six
24:00-week cycle.
24:01The source says this effectively sidelined the experts in the Middle East section
24:06and meant reports came directly to Cameron's political director's office.
24:12These changes are corroborated by this government document.
24:21And were made around the time of an incident in Gaza involving British citizens.
24:37The National State Department of International Airlines
24:38Hi, Anne. Hi, Neil.
24:39Hello.
24:41Neil and Trish Henderson's son James had served in the Royal Marines in Afghanistan.
24:46From February 2024, he was working for World Central Kitchen,
24:50a charity delivering food to civilians in Gaza.
24:54We could see what was happening in Gaza.
24:57But you think if they're doing humanitarian work,
25:02then they're going to be safe. They should be safe.
25:05They should have been safe. They should have been safe.
25:07Yeah, he wasn't out there fighting a war.
25:09He was out there trying to help people.
25:15James entered Gaza just before famine was declared by the UN.
25:19As a security adviser, he was responsible for the team's safety,
25:25along routes coordinated with the IDF.
25:31He said, no matter where you go, all you can hear is drones all the time.
25:36When I finished on the phone to you, he said,
25:39I'm going to go up and put some more World Central Kitchen stickers on the roof.
25:46And that was the last time I spoke to him.
25:50On the 1st of April, James and two other British veterans,
25:54John Anthony Chapman and James Kirby, were driving in an aid convoy.
25:58At 11pm, an Israeli drone fired on them.
26:03Seven aid workers were killed, including the three Brits.
26:09I've always remember Trish just crying out to me,
26:12it's Jim, you know, and then you realise, you know,
26:15that he was one of the seven.
26:20That whole day is just a blur, really, in that sense.
26:27Killings of the aid workers in the World Central Kitchen strike
26:30triggered an international outcry.
26:34The devastating Israeli airstrikes that killed World Central Kitchen personnel yesterday
26:40bring the number of aid workers killed in this conflict to 196,
26:46including more than 175 members of our own UN staff.
26:52This is unconscionable, but it is an inevitable result
26:56of the way the war is being conducted.
27:02I welcome what the Israeli Foreign Minister said yesterday to me
27:07about a full, urgent and transparent inquiry
27:11into how this dreadful event was allowed to happen.
27:14And we want to see that happen very, very quickly.
27:18But that same day,
27:20Cameron was publicly demanding answers from the Israelis.
27:23Behind closed doors,
27:24he signed off the latest approval of weapons exports to Israel.
27:28Israel, without waiting for Israel's investigation to be completed.
27:33This was just two days after the drone strike.
27:39This letter outlines his decision,
27:41which was based on the fifth IHL assessment.
27:45The Foreign Secretary does not recommend the suspension
27:49of any extant export licences to Israel.
27:53I want to show you this letter from David Cameron's office,
27:58and it was sent on the 3rd of April.
28:00So, two days after James was killed.
28:05Have you seen this letter?
28:07No. No, I haven't.
28:08This letter is advising that all weapons exports should continue,
28:14including parts for offensive drones.
28:17I can't believe it.
28:19He's concluded that Israel was not committed to complying
28:22with international humanitarian law.
28:26But that it does not lead to the need to recommend the suspension of export loss.
28:31Suspension would have a significant impact on UK interests.
28:35How?
28:38What are UK interests?
28:40I find that's terrible.
28:43A five-day Israeli investigation concluded that the bombing was a grave mistake.
28:48The senior commander who ordered the strikes was dismissed.
28:52The Israeli military have said they mistakenly believed the vehicles contained Hamas militants.
28:57At a series of high-level briefings, the UK was updated about Israel's findings.
29:03Foreign Secretary, can we have confidence in any internal investigations,
29:09or should we be seeking independent inquiry?
29:13All I would say is when it comes to the tragedy of the World Central Kitchen attack and loss of
29:18life,
29:19the early signs are that it is a proper investigation.
29:23The World Central Kitchen strike was eventually recorded as a possible breach of international law
29:29in the sixth IHL cell assessment, the first assessment under Cameron's new reporting arrangements.
29:40An incident that shocked the world and became the subject of an Oscar-nominated film was also in the sixth
29:46IHL cell assessment.
29:50Five-year-old Hind Rajab was fleeing fighting with her family when their car came under Israeli fire.
29:57Hind was the only survivor and hid among her family's bodies for hours, pleading to be rescued.
30:06Thank you so much.
30:26When the Palestinian ambulance crew finally arrived, Israeli troops fired, killing them all.
30:32Hind's call was cut off amid the sound of gunfire.
30:42Her body was retrieved days later.
30:45The UK government assessment found that there was insufficient evidence of an IHL violation.
30:53Israeli military police recently initiated an investigation of the incident.
30:59We asked Professor William Shabass what he makes of the UK's assessment.
31:05It's a preposterous suggestion.
31:07When a child is killed in this matter, I think there has to be a very strong presumption that not
31:17only can there not be any military justification or explanation for it,
31:21there would be some circumstances where you couldn't rule that out.
31:24But I think knowing what we know about the circumstances with Hind Rajab and Makar, that this clearly, if we're
31:31talking about a violation,
31:33we're talking about a war crime, a violation of the laws of armed conflict and a violation of the rights
31:37of the child.
31:39Along with hundreds of others, Hind Rajab's case was not deemed a possible war crime by the IHL cell.
31:46And David Cameron once again concluded that, overall, Israel is committed to complying with international humanitarian law.
31:55So a multitude of UK arms continued to flow to Israel, including weapons used by its military to attack Gaza
32:03by land, sea and air.
32:07Meanwhile, deep unease within the foreign office led to hundreds of civil servants signing letters expressing fears the UK was
32:16complicit in Israel's alleged war crimes in Gaza.
32:22Bosses told unhappy staff that if their disagreement was profound, they should resign.
32:34What a number of members felt was that the job that they were being asked to do,
32:38so implementing those arms licences, which would ultimately lead to what you're seeing unfolding on your television screen,
32:44it was potentially unlawful according to international law.
32:50Now, clearly, the government would say, well, we've given them a reasonable instruction and we expect them to carry out
32:56that instruction.
33:00Several senior foreign office insiders told us Gaza strained relations between civil servants and ministers more than any previous conflict.
33:11They told us they were instructed not to use the words ethnic cleansing or genocide in reports.
33:19They described an atmosphere of intimidation.
33:23Fearing for their jobs, only one agreed to speak on the record.
33:27Mark Smith.
33:29This is his real voice, but he's portrayed by an actor.
33:34We've all seen the aerial footage of entire neighbourhoods, literally flattened to the ground.
33:42They've destroyed the vast majority of all residential buildings in Gaza.
33:53I've never seen anything like it in my career, in my life.
34:01He'd been a lead officer on arms sales assessments during the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
34:06He was now working as a diplomat representing the UK and Ireland, and was shocked by the handling of Gaza.
34:16And the nature of the assessment is such that you can kind of make it say whatever you want, and
34:27that is why the system is broken.
34:32Because of the scale of destruction, he was concerned about possible war crimes, and even genocide.
34:40So even without being on the team and having access to the assessments being made,
34:51I could see on the news, in broad daylight, with the naked eye, the most appalling attacks taking place on
35:05a daily basis.
35:06Almost every single school and almost every single hospital in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed.
35:19How are we justifying our arms exports?
35:26If there is even a question, whether domestically or internationally, that a state that you are selling arms to might
35:38be conducting a genocide,
35:41then the time to be discussing whether they might be in breach of IHL is way gone.
35:50Mark told us when he asked for clarification on the UK's policy on arms exports, he got a disturbing response.
35:57I got the barrage of big underlined red letters, capital letters, delete these emails, you shouldn't be asking this.
36:05Various kind of legal officials and senior people coming in and saying, who is this person questioning this?
36:14And so there I realised that they were panicking.
36:22Mark Smith resigned in August 2024 over the government's refusal to halt arms sales to Israel.
36:38Next on dispatches, in opposition, they criticised the UK policy on Gaza, but are the actions of the new Labour
36:46government as meaningful as they say?
37:06Labour took power on the 4th of July 2024.
37:15Dispatches has been investigating the government response to Gaza.
37:20We've obtained the advice on arms licences to Israel, circulating within the Foreign Office later that month.
37:29Addressed to the Foreign Secretary's private secretary, it said there is a clear risk that items might be used to
37:36commit or facilitate violations of IHL.
37:39International humanitarian law.
37:42The submission presented two options, including a ban on all exports.
37:48It was advised this would send a political signal.
37:52The then Foreign Secretary David Lammy says he was not presented with the submission.
37:59It is with regret that I informed the House today, the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude
38:08anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might
38:17be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
38:25The new government suspended most licences, but controversially chose to continue the export of some UK parts for Israel's F
38:35-35 fighter jets.
38:37This was known as the F-35 carve-out.
38:40The government argued these exports could not be stopped without disrupting the international global supply chain, a claim contested by
38:48many experts, leaving Israel with arguably its most powerful weapon still being supplied by the UK.
38:59Any suspension would be meaningless if it didn't include the F-35 components, because not only were they, in terms
39:06of value, you know, nearly outweighing every other single licence, they were nearly doubling the quantity of UK exports.
39:12As well as increasing evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes, the new Labour government had to face growing calls that
39:20Israel was committing a genocide.
39:22From almost the start of Israel's assault, genocide scholars, human rights experts, the UN, and international courts warned that a
39:32genocide could be unfolding in Gaza.
39:34This was important, because legally, signatories of the Genocide Convention, like the UK, must take action to prevent genocide.
39:43As soon as they become aware, there is a serious risk of it.
39:51Politicians from both parties repeatedly dismissed claims that Israel was committing genocide.
39:59I think accusing Israel, a nation that in many ways was born out of the Holocaust and the genocide that
40:07took place under the Nazis,
40:09accusing Israel of genocide devalues the term and is simply wrong.
40:16I'm well aware of the definition of genocide and that is why I've never described this and referred to it
40:22as genocide.
40:27As well as the continuing IHL assessment process, UK ministers were also hearing directly from witnesses behind closed doors.
40:36A group of British surgeons volunteering in Gaza had compiled a dossier of evidence of what they thought was genocide,
40:44particularly the suffering and targeting of children.
40:48There's a serman, he is five years old. That's what she used to look like.
40:54The difficult thing to deal with was the number of children and women, really, because they were bombed or shot
41:02at.
41:06One day there was 19 young boys, all of whom had been shot in the head and neck and the
41:12head and neck only.
41:13Another day, another day mainly in the abdomen, another day in the chest and one day they were all shot
41:18in the testicles.
41:21The distribution of the injuries was so striking that we could not believe it was coincidental and it seemed to
41:30us like it must be deliberate targeting.
41:33The doctors met with then Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
41:37I would have said the Starmer meeting was the worst meeting that we had.
41:41But we were given strict instructions not to present any photographic evidence.
41:46We weren't allowed to screen share.
41:49We were given our turn to speak, but nothing was said by the Prime Minister.
41:54He was a very tiny figure at the back of the screen sitting behind his desk.
41:59I gave a summary of our work in Gaza, the total destruction, the destruction of those elements within any society
42:10that are essential for life.
42:12The evidence of the war crimes and the genocide that we're witnessing, that there can be no question that our
42:20senior politicians know what is going on.
42:24And the fact they are ignoring it, I do believe, amounts to complicity.
42:30We found this June 2024 government assessment, where it accepted that it was uncontentious that the physical components of genocide
42:41were present in Gaza.
42:44But it concluded they were not obliged to act because they did not find genocidal intent.
42:50And this internal document presents another key finding, that no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian
43:00women or children.
43:03There's loads of evidence of intent, and here I refer to the British government's own submission in another case dealing
43:13with genocide at the International Court of Justice, where they intervened to support the claims against Myanmar that they're committing
43:20genocide.
43:22In the situation in Gaza, compared with what happened in Myanmar, the number of deaths is infinitely greater, by an
43:34order of magnitude of maybe 15 or 20 times the number of killings of women and children in Gaza.
43:45In September 2025, a special UN commission of inquiry concluded Israel was committing a genocide.
43:54It also published a report that Israel was deliberately targeting children.
44:00Navi Pele is an international judge and chair of the commission.
44:03It found that Israel had committed four of the five genocidal acts as defined by the 1948 Geneva Convention on
44:11Genocide.
44:13Killing Palestinians, causing serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of
44:22Palestinians, and preventing births.
44:27The UK government has assessed that Israel isn't committing genocide because it says it can't determine its intent.
44:36What do you think of that?
44:39That's the beauty of setting up a commission of inquiry, who've investigated, set out the facts.
44:46So states cannot say they don't know, they don't have the tools to establish whether these acts were accompanied by
44:55genocidal intent.
44:58Because we've set it out in our report, it's been widely accepted.
45:02Why do you think the UK isn't acting?
45:04I find they have a distinct departure from the rules when it comes to Israel.
45:12They support Israel.
45:13So they don't apply the same rules to their friends as they do to their enemies.
45:18So I think that they're not speaking the truth, they're misleading their population, and they need to answer that question.
45:25Why aren't they preventing genocide?
45:32So far, at least a dozen states have intervened in support of South Africa's genocide case against Israel.
45:39The UK has not.
45:41In July 2026, another new Labour government was formed under Andy Burnham.
45:48In one of its first major acts, the new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, declared Israel's occupation of the West Bank
45:55unlawful and imposed new sanctions.
45:59He said what had happened in Gaza was a stain on the world and the UK.
46:05But on genocide, there was no change.
46:13On the question of genocide, the UK has always supported full, robust and fair judicial processes to consider allegations,
46:21with final determinations made by competent courts before the British government reaches a conclusion.
46:28Over 21,000 children have been killed by Israel so far in Gaza.
46:34Since the supposed ceasefire, over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed and over 300 children,
46:41and Israel has forced two million people into a third of the territory.
46:47Britain helped build the international institutions and laws to protect civilians in wars,
46:53and built internal systems that were meant to warn politicians when those laws were being broken.
46:59There has always been a gap between that aspiration and the reality.
47:05But Gaza leaves a dark question.
47:07What becomes of that promise when the law is enforced for enemies, but bent for allies?
47:31This is a very special opinion, the answer is, does the sides of the world do not anymore?
47:31How would they get the other preferredfan Huawei continue to agree stitch on the table?
47:31Why would theyify that?
47:52This issue Ankusa knows very well, and I have seen her weitesting it in,