Gaza genocide: Why we seek to have a British-Israeli soldier prosecuted
As western leaders jostle and preoccupy themselves with US President Donald Trump’s so-called “peace plan“, the media buzz has started looking to “what’s next”, rather than reflecting on the 734 days of genocide Palestinians have endured.
Trump’s plan is filled with red flags about eroding Palestinian agency, about neocolonial British-American control over Gaza, and about failing to stop Israel’s continued violations of the ceasefire.
These concerns are all vitally important, but equally important is accountability for the perpetrators of the genocide, from the most senior generals to the most junior foot soldier.
That is why the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has applied for a court summons to prosecute a dual national British-Israeli soldier for allegedly enlisting in the Israel army, in violation of Section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.
The individual is believed to have served in an Israeli army unit on the Lebanese border before deployment to the Occupied West Bank.
Abandoning the survivors
It is important to note that whilst Israelis are subject to conscription, British and British-Israeli citizens who served in the Israeli army during the genocide have done so entirely voluntarily.
Israel imposes no obligation on its dual-nationals to serve. The individual in this case decided of his own volition to join the Israeli army and participate in the genocide.
Since the beginning of the genocide, ICJP has collected evidence of war crimes by the Israeli government, and evidence of British-Israeli soldiers fighting for the Israeli army.
We submitted evidence to Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit in January 2024, but we can no longer wait for the UK government to take the initiative to hold complicit actors to account.
Inaction means abandoning the survivors of genocide and apartheid.
Not only does the UK government continue to withhold intelligence gathered from its RAF Akrotiri surveillance flights over Gaza – along with other classified data that could help identify war crimes and perpetrators – but the current government and previous government are also actively complicit in the genocide themselves, through political cover and the continued supply of arms.
So British Prime Minister Keir Starmer may pat himself on the back over the long overdue and politically convenient recognition of the Palestinian state, but his government fails to grasp a crucial truth: symbolic gestures do not stop tanks, missiles, or forced displacement.
Recognition without action does nothing to prevent the attempted erasure of Palestinians under the weight of Israeli aggression, and it does nothing to deliver justice.
Blocking accountability
The reality is that ample evidence demonstrates that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by Israel and its army in Gaza.
There can be no true and lasting peace without justice. And there can be no justice without accountability
Whilst its true that certain aspects of accountability may fall outside the UK’s jurisdiction, the state retains full legal authority to prosecute British and dual British-Israeli nationals implicated in these offences.
Through open-source investigation, we have identified British and dual British-Israeli citizens who served in the Israeli army during the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
By fighting for a foreign army against a state that the UK is at peace with, these individuals are alleged to have violated Section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.
Ironically, whilst the government’s formal recognition of the State of Palestine may have been designed as meaningless virtue signalling, it has in fact bolstered the case.
The previous government actually used non-recognition of Palestine as an argument for why they didn’t think the Foreign Enlistment Act could be used in this way.
Even this was a weak excuse.
What next?
The truth is that ever since the State of Palestine became a State Party to the Rome Statute, a case like this could have been brought forward.
But even if we accept the previous government’s flimsy logic, then that excuse no longer stands, now that the UK has recognised Palestine.
So, the question is this: will the Labour government take an even more radical stance than the previous Conservative government in blocking accountability?
So what happens next? There will be a court hearing to decide if the court summons will be accepted. If so, we will issue the individual with the court-issued summons, demanding that they turn up to court.
If they fail to do so, we will apply for an arrest warrant for their arrest.
There can be no hiding from justice. Perpetrators of these crimes must be brought to account.
As western actors clamber over each other, scrambling for pieces to the “puzzle”, they remain in blissful ignorance that the missing puzzle piece is accountability.
There can be no true and lasting peace without justice. And there can be no justice without accountability.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
