The Labor government has been complicit in Israel’s crimes in Gaza and the desecration of international law, according to an unofficial Gaza tribunal chaired by former party leader Jeremy Corbyn and two international law specialists.
The court’s findings, due to be published on Monday, are likely to be cited in May’s local elections, in which Labor faces a rearguard action to fend off challenges from the Greens and their Party, partly driven by anger that the government has not done enough to support the Palestinian cause.
The court took evidence from lawyers, medical professionals, former Foreign Office officials and Palestinians, and largely focused on whether the UK should have done more to end its cooperation with Israel to avoid being accused of failing in its duty to prevent genocide.
It finds that the government should have ended all arms exports to Israel, stopped sharing intelligence and reviewed its trade relations with the country, especially after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said in a July 2024 advisory opinion that Israel was illegally occupying Palestine.
The tribunal report says: “Britain’s failure to comply with its legal obligations has contributed to the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the wholesale destruction of civilian objects, the desecration of international law and the further erosion of Britain’s status as a nation committed to the rule of law internationally.”
It says the UK not only failed in its duty to try to prevent genocide, but in some cases actively participated in such acts.
The Foreign Ministry says it has imposed three sets of sanctions in response to settler violence in the West Bank and opposes all forms of forced displacement.
Middle East minister Hamish Falconer told MPs earlier this month that the government “should report to parliament on the wider issues raised by the ICJ advisory opinion”. “There must be accountability and justice for all crimes committed throughout the Palestinian and Israeli territory,” he said.
The ICJ has not yet held a full hearing on whether genocide was committed in Gaza, but said in January 2024 that there was a real and imminent risk of irreparable harm to the rights of Palestinians to be protected from acts of genocide.
The tribunal’s two co-chairs were Dr Shahd Hammouri, professor of international law at the University of Kent, and Neve Gordon, professor of human rights law at Queen Mary University of London.
Much of the report focuses on the legal duties that the ICJ rulings imposed on the government. It concludes that the January 2024 finding clearly warned all States that they had fulfilled their duty under the Geneva Conventions to prevent genocide, and this required “more than expressions of concern”.
The fundamental duty should not be replaced by contractual obligations to American arms manufacturers, or by declaring that international courts have not reached any definitive conclusion, he says.
The 112-page report also states that the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine imposed a legal duty on the United Kingdom and other states to refrain from entering into trade agreements with Israel in relation to the occupied territories, especially if the trade could entrench its “unlawful presence.”
In his preface, Corbyn says the report “will help cement Labour’s legacy as an active participant in one of the great crimes of our time”.
The court, based on evidence gathered in an internal UN court case brought by the Global Legal Action Network, concluded that the government had imposed a requirement on itself to ask Israel to justify specific attacks on Gaza, leading it to conclude that a violation of international humanitarian law had definitely occurred in only one of the 413 cases examined.
The report says its perverse self-imposed methodology “required the government to examine the impact of an individual strike on a hospital, but not the legality of decimating the entire health system.”
In evidence cited by the court, Falconer told MPs that reaching a conclusion about individual incidents required specific sensitive information “such as intended targets, intended military advantage and anticipated civilian harm, which is often not at our disposal.”
The court recommends that the government disclose all license details, publish all legal advice relating to its obligation to prevent genocide, establish a full public inquiry and provide the ICJ with all surveillance footage it collected during RAF overflights in Gaza.
The left is likely to use the court’s findings to attack Labor in local elections. A Vote Palestine 2026 campaign, backed by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC), calls for Gaza to be on the ballot as local councils invest billions in Israel. So far 1,200 council candidates have signed the PSC’s commitment to Palestine.
Local pacts are being encouraged in which independents and local green parties cooperate to attack Labor councillors. His party, of which Corbyn is parliamentary leader, said it would “campaign strongly on Gaza and Palestine, including calling on councils to divest from Israel”.
