Declassified UK: Accountability is optional

Accountability is optional

The Metropolitan Police has declined to investigate Britons accused of committing war crimes while serving with the Israeli military in Gaza.

Last April, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) filed an extensive, 240-page dossier to the Met’s War Crimes Team.

The report detailed the alleged involvement of the 10 British nationals, including dual citizens, in the “targeted killings of civilians and aid workers, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, attacks on hospitals and protected sites, and the forced transfer and displacement of civilians”.

Over 70 legal and human rights experts urged the Met’s War Crimes Team to investigate all suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Britons when the dossier was handed in. 

In its recent decision letter, the Met Police accepted that international bodies have found that Israel’s actions in Gaza “could amount to war crimes” and identified at least four individuals of “particular interest.” 

However, the War Crimes Team has refused to move beyond a scoping exercise, saying there was “no realistic prospect of conviction” and that an “effective investigation could not be conducted.”

Paul Heron, a solicitor at PILC, said: “We reject The Met’s conclusions”.

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“By demanding evidence capable of securing a realistic prospect of conviction before even opening an investigation, the Police have applied the wrong legal test and set the bar far too high. British nationals and residents cannot be allowed to participate in atrocities abroad with impunity.”

The PILC maintains that the referral provided credible material warranting a full investigation.

We recently revealed that at least 2000 Britons served in Israel’s military during the Gaza genocide. 

Meanwhile, Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state may also place British nationals serving in the Israeli army in breach of the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act. The act prohibits citizens from fighting for a foreign state at war with another state at peace with the UK, but there is no sign of enforcement.

And what is absent is equally telling: The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) travel advice for Ukraine explicitly warns British nationals that fighting there “may amount to offences under UK legislation”and that they “could be prosecuted on your return”. 

No equivalent warning appears in FCDO advice for Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This exposes a glaring and systemic accountability gap - one the Foreign Office recently deepened by quietly shutting down its unit tracking Israeli breaches of international law.

The Met’s refusal is the latest in a pattern of dereliction: British institutions, one by one, declining to act on Israel’s crimes.

Hamza Yusuf

Regular Contributor
Declassified UK

Join us in Newcastle this Saturday at 2pm for a live screening of our latest film, ‘Britain’s Gaza Spy Flight Scandal’ at the Star and Shadow Cinema.

Film makers Phil Miller and Alex Morris will be taking your questions, chaired by co-director Laura Pidcock.

Want us to visit your local cinema? Get in touch at [email protected]!

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