Corbyn Calls for UK Ministers to Be Investigated Over Gaza Genocide

Jeremy Corbyn is recommending that UK ministers are investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in light of government complicity and participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza detailed in the Gaza Tribunal report.

The report, released on Monday, found that the UK government has failed in every single legal obligation under treaty and international law, and has been complicit in atrocity crimes – in some instances even being an active participant.

Corbyn, the parliamentary leader of Your Party, told Novara Media: “Complicity demands consequences. In the aftermath of the Iraq war, governments escaped accountability for the role they played in catastrophic human suffering. This time, we must achieve real accountability and real justice for the Palestinian people.” 

Corbyn held the Gaza Tribunal in September last year to “uncover the full scale of British complicity in genocide” since October 2023, hearing testimony from witnesses, journalists and survivors, as well as a range of lawyers, whistleblowers and experts in international law. 

Corbyn said the report, which he authored along with international law experts Dr Shahd Hammouri and Prof Neve Gordon, will “help cement the government’s legacy as a participant in one of the greatest crimes of our time”. 

The report’s authors are committed to working with the ICC to “draw their attention to evidence presented in this report including violations of international law and evidence of criminal complicity implicating government ministers and officials”. They highlighted those “who have authorised the continuation of economic ties with Israel, as well as the commission of arms trades, arm transfers and intelligence exchange” as being worthy of investigation. 

Recommendations from the report include that the British government should release full licensing and export data on military shipments to Israel to date, along with all legal advice on the government’s assessment of genocide and its obligations to prevent it. 

The report also calls for all surveillance footage collected by RAF spy flights over Gaza to be shared with the ICC and International Court of Justice (ICJ), and for the government to cooperate with a full, independent public inquiry into cooperation between the UK and Israel since October 2023, which has the power to question ministers and officials. 

Evidence collected from tribunal testimonies is sorted into four categories: the destruction of the medical system, the destruction of the education system, the targeting of journalists and the production of famine.

Two British healthcare workers gave evidence, with NHS consultant plastic surgeon Dr Victoria Rose telling the tribunal that she was “seeing children with bits of their body blown off” as part of daily operations on children. 

Rose described one day of operating in May where she operated on six children including “a five-year-old girl who had had her arm blown off” and her sister, who “had had her left cheek and shoulder blown off”.  

Consultant gastrointestinal surgeon Dr Nick Maynard described the total destruction of a hospital in Gaza by the IDF, saying: “They destroyed the scanning machines. They cut the cables to all the ultrasound machines. They cut the cables and destroyed all the dialysis machines… The Israeli military bombed the intensive care unit whilst I was operating in the operating theatre next door.” 

The report describes Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s medical system as “deliberate, systematic and near total”, and attacks on healthcare facilities and staff as “medicide”.

It finds that the UK’s legal obligations under international law required – at minimum – 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 materally assist unlawful acts; support for humanitarian relief and opposition to policies producing famine conditions; and full co‑operation with international accountability, including the ICC and the relevant UN special rapporteurs. 

The British government has been found to fail in each of these five areas. It has continued to supply weapons to Israel, particularly parts of F-35 jets which are central to Israel’s genocide. Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer at Global Legal Action Network, told the tribunal that it has been “really quite shocking to observe how far this government is willing to create legal absurdities to defy logic… to employ every tool at its disposal in order to keep arming Israel”. 

The report accuses the UK government of ignoring “blatant violations” of international humanitarian law and applying a “skewed methodology” when assessing Israeli breaches of it by only looking at specific incidents, not patterns or overall pictures, along with providing political and diplomatic cover to Israel. 

Mark Smith, a British Foreign Office official who resigned in protest over continued arms sales to Israel in August 2024, testified that although his assessment was that “it was impossible to see how the UK government was acting legally”, this was repeatedly ignored and downplayed. 

Prime minister Keir Starmer’s administration also came under fire for actively “undermining” the ICC’s issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant by questioning its jurisdiction withholding support for the warrants and failing to facilitate investigations, according to testimony from Tayab Ali, director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians.

The role of British bases in facilitating the transport, refuelling and maintenance of Israeli military equipment, and of the Royal Air Force in conducting spy flights over Gaza from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was also cited as evidence of the UK’s active participation in the genocide. 

Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of whom at least 20,000 are children. This is likely to be a severe undercount, and does not account for bodies still trapped under rubble.