Ten Britons who served with the Israeli military in Gaza are facing accusations of war crimes by one of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers.
Michael Mansfield KC will today hand in a 240-page dossier to the Metropolitan Police‘s war crimes unit alleging the British nationals were involved in the targeted killing of civilians and aid workers.
His team of lawyers have also said they carried out indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, including hospitals, coordinated attacks on protected sites including historic monuments and religious sites, and forced transfer and displacement of civilians.
The suspects include individuals who have served in the Israeli military at officer level.
They cannot be named for legal reasons.
Mansfield, who has worked on landmark legal cases including the Grenfell Tower Fire and the Hillsborough disaster, prepared his report alongside a team of UK-based lawyers and researches in the Hague.
It covers alleged offences which took place in Gaza between October 2023 and May 2024.
He said: ‘If one of our nationals is committing an offence, we ought to be doing something about it.
‘Even if we can’t stop the government of foreign countries behaving badly, we can at least stop our nationals from behaving badly.
Michael Mansfield will today hand in a 240-page dossier to the Metropolitan Police ‘s war crimes unit
Soldiers were accused of being involved in the targeted killing of civilians and aid workers
‘British nationals are under a legal obligation not to collude with crimes committed in Palestine. No one is above the law.’
Each of the crimes attributed to the 10 suspects, some of whom are dual nationals, amounts to a war crime or crime against humanity.
One witness stationed at a medical facility said they saw corpses ‘scattered on the ground, especially in the middle of the hospital courtyard, where many dead bodies were buried in a mass grave’, according to The Guardian.
A bulldozer then ‘ran over a dead body in a horrific and heart-wrenching scene desecrating the dead’ as well as demolishing part of the hospital.
Another witness, whose relatives were killed in another attack, said: ‘I could not bear what I saw: dead bodies scattered next to each other.
‘I could not recognise them as they were covered with a blanket… I took off the cover and saw the bodies of my uncle and his son, my nephews, and my brother-in-law along with other displaced people’s bodies.’
Sean Summerfield, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, who helped compile the dossier, said: ‘The public will be shocked, I would have thought, to hear that there’s credible evidence that Brits have been directly involved in committing some of those atrocities.’
He claimed that he wanted to see individuals appear at the Old Bailey ‘to answer for atrocity crimes’.
The report, which has been submitted on behalf of the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and the British-based Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), suggests that the UK has a responsibility to probe and prosecute anyone who has committed ‘core international crimes’.
This relies on Section 51 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which states that is is an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to commit genocide, a crime against humanity, or a war crime’, even if it takes place in another country.
Raji Sourani, the director of the PCHR, said: ‘This is illegal, this is inhuman and enough is enough. The government cannot say we didn’t know; we are providing them with all the evidence.’
Residents examine the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli military strike on the Nuseirat Refugee Camp
Civil defense teams and residents of the region carry out search and rescue operations in the rubble of the targeted house following an Israeli strike on al-Menara neighborhood of Khan Yunis
One witness stationed at a medical facility said they saw corpses ‘scattered on the ground, especially in the middle of the hospital courtyard, where many dead bodies were buried in a mass grave’
Paul Heron, the legal director of the PILC, said: ‘Shockingly, British citizens have actively served in Israel’s armed forces, directly contributing to atrocities.
‘As a law centre based in Britain, we have a duty to stand up.
‘We’re filing our report to make clear these war crimes are not in our name.’
Israel has consistently denied that its political leaders or military have committed war crimes during its assault on Gaza in which it has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.
Several major human rights organisations have accused Israeli authorities of war crimes, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said there were ‘reasonable grounds’ that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bore ‘criminal responsibility’ for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity
And last week’s killings of 15 medics and humanitarian workers in Gaza after shots were fired at their ambulances prompted the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to suggest the military were commissioning war crimes.
There have also been questions raised around British citizens joining the armed forces of a foreign state.
Section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 makes it an offence for a British subject to enlist in the military of a foreign state at war with another foreign state with which the UK is at peace.
Israel has consistently denied that its political leaders or military have committed war crimes during its assault on Gaza in which it has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians
But last year Lord Ahmad, the former Conservative Minister, clarified: ‘The UK recognises the right of British nationals with more than one nationality to serve in the legitimately recognised armed forces of their additional nationalities. This includes the Israel Defence Force.
‘Prohibition does not extend, however, to enlistment in a foreign government’s forces which are engaged in a civil war or combating terrorism or internal uprisings.
The Occupied Palestinian Territories are not currently recognised as a state by the UK. The 1870 Act therefore does not apply in this instance.’
The Met Police and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) were contacted for comment.
