TESTIMONY
British Palestinian Committee joins a wide range of experts testifying to the role of Britain in Gaza
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
London, 5th September 2025
Dr. Sara Husseini, Director of the British Palestinian Committee:
I want to start by taking a moment to pay tribute to the courage and civic commitment of our people in Gaza – healthcare workers, journalists, recovery teams, communities – who embody the very definition of humanity.
While the national emergency that we, the Palestinian people, are facing today is unprecedented, it cannot be seen as an aberration.
Rather, the past two years of mass murder, starvation and forced displacement that have occurred during this ongoing, live-streamed genocide are the culmination of a process more than a century old.
Since the state of Israel’s foundation – premised on the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians – successive Israeli governments have advanced the twin goals of maximising domination over the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river, while ensuring the fewest number of Palestinians remain on it - a principle repeated publicly by the Israeli Minister of Finance almost verbatim this just this week.
Throughout this time, Israel has relied upon the support – diplomatic, military, economic, ideological – of a handful of powerful states.
Britain – often historically miscast as innocent bystander, hapless arbiter, or even tragic victim – has, in fact, been remarkably consistent in aiding and abetting Palestinian dispossession. Britain’s first Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald gave the Balfour Declaration “his full backing” in 1917. Then, at its annual conference in 1944, the party adopted a resolution endorsing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, making the “transfer of population” in which Palestinians would be “encouraged to move out” of their homeland, official Labour policy.
Today, we see this in ongoing diplomatic support for Israel, justifications for atrocities being committed, dehumanisation of Palestinians in political rhetoric and media discourse, efforts to undermine Palestinian attempts at accountability, the demonisation of international solidarity and, most egregiously, in the active military assistance rendered to Israel as it commits its ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians on a scale not witnessed since 1948.
As we heard in part 2 of this tribunal, the UK has a duty to play a critical role in supporting Palestinians in their long struggle to return to their homes and live in freedom in their homeland – to address the root causes of injustice and take steps to fulfil its own obligations under international law.
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In November last year the British Palestinian Committee – an independent organisation of Palestinian experts in the UK – released a comprehensive Policy Guide for the new Labour government.
This guide proposed a clear evidence-based framework grounded in justice, freedom, and international law. It set out three urgent priorities:
First, to actively and urgently work to stop the genocide in Gaza and end the UK’s complicity in ongoing violations of Palestinian rights.
Second, to uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and return.
Third, to defend the public realm and protect Palestinians in Britain from discrimination.
Over the last year, Keir Starmer's administration has failed to implement almost every recommendation. In several instances, the government’s actions have actively perpetuated and worsened the violations of Palestinian lives and rights.
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I will now highlight 3 examples of Britain’s involvement under each of the aforementioned priorities.
With regards to stopping the genocide:
First and most damning of all, the UK is still providing military support to Israel. As we have heard from experts, this goes far beyond the continued licensing of arms exports – including the supply of F-35 parts through the spares pool, without which Israel’s fleet would not be mission capable.
The British Army has been training – on British soil – a number of Israeli military personnel active in the genocide.
Royal Air Force bases are being used to ship military cargo and to send surveillance flights to Gaza almost daily.
Second, with regard to wider trade with Israel, while we saw the government announce the suspension of trade negotiations in May, UK ministers made it clear this suspension was only limited and temporary. In fact, it seemed to last only a matter of days – with the UK’s trade envoy to Israel announcing via X, just a week after the foreign secretary’s statement, that he was in Israel to “promote trade with the UK”.
Without economic and diplomatic sanctions, Israel will not be compelled to abide by its international obligations as set out, inter alia, in the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation.
Third, ministers have refused to support the South African submission at the ICJ in the genocide case against Israel, and push for the prosecution by the ICC of Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
While a growing number of states – such as the Hague Group, as well as Belgium, Norway, and Spain – have taken positive action to address the unfolding genocide, the UK remains a glaring outlier – increasingly politically isolated and morally adrift.
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In terms of upholding the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination:
The UK is yet to formally recognise that Israel’s laws, policies and practices meet the legal definition of apartheid, and take the appropriate and effective action to remedy this crime – which it could do by such means as pushing for the reconstitution of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid and the UN Centre Against Apartheid.
Regarding UNRWA: while the Labour government restored some funding to the agency – following the previous government’s appalling decision to suspend support at a time when Palestinians needed their services most – the restored funding has remained lower than previous levels, despite the greatly increased need.
Moreover this government, as with previous governments, has failed to defend UNRWA from longstanding attacks designed to delegitimise and undermine the Palestinian right of return – particularly following the banning of the agency by the Israeli parliament in October 2024, which contravenes the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
The UK government has similarly failed to prevent attacks on the agency’s operations in Gaza – above all its distribution of aid, which has been systematically undermined by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – creating a new system described by UNRWA as ‘a killing field.’ Meanwhile, only yesterday the Trump administration added several more of our frontline human rights to their sanction list – including Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human rights. This government should be acting urgently to condemn and reverse such decisions.
On the right to self-determination: the 29th of July, the Prime Minister threatened Israel with the recognition of a Palestinian state, unless Israel takes steps to re-allow food into Gaza, agrees to a ceasefire, and promises not to annex the West Bank.
In the context of the ongoing genocide – unfolding with British support – this symbolic and conditional recognition from the UK will do nothing at this time to safeguard the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination. In fact, it is actively undermining international law by casting the right to self-determination and the illegality of the occupation as negotiable.
This, along with the other minimal steps taken by this government – limited arms licence suspensions, sanctions on individual settlers, announcements of trade talk suspensions – represents a performative and cynical attempt to diffuse the pressure the government is facing over its role in Gaza.
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Lastly, regarding the rights of Palestinians here in the UK, and the defence of civil liberties of those standing in support with Palestine:
Through their hostile foreign policy, successive British governments have entrenched structural racism against Palestinians in the UK. This has been consistently reinforced from Downing Street and across British media, exemplified by the parroting of "self-defence" rhetoric invoked by an occupying power against an occupied people, and by Keir Starmer’s endorsement of Israel’s siege on the entire population of Gaza, to name just two examples.
Today’s Labour party – in opposition and in government – has supported laws and policing actions that severely restrict peaceful protest and expressions of solidarity, including proscribing civil disobedience groups like Palestine Action – meaning that demonstrators now potentially face years in prison for protesting this country’s involvement in the mass murder of women, men and children.
Furthermore, the government has remained silent as students mobilising for Gaza on university campuses, employees in their workplaces, and hundreds of thousands of people taking part in demonstrations have faced intimidation, disciplinary actions, and police interventions.
And lastly, here in Britain, watching helplessly as their loved ones are bombed, displaced and starved, Palestinians from Gaza have campaigned for a family visa scheme based on the Ukrainian model, until it is safe to return home. The government has consistently refused, despite cross-party calls and a petition with over 100,000 signatures. Earlier this week, the Home Secretary suspended refugee family reunion altogether – the only legal route for spouses and children under 18 to join loved ones. This move will have devastating consequences for those seeking to bring family members to safety, and takes a sledgehammer to the professed principles of the Labour party, as this government continues to pander to a far-right agenda.
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In closing: The members of this tribunal, the policy-makers in the buildings around us, and the wider British public should be under no illusion: we are witnessing one of the most heinous crimes in modern history. What is being inflicted upon Palestinians – our loved ones – in Gaza today will forever be remembered as a stain on our collective humanity.
And yet, despite all of the horrors, there still remains an opportunity to change course. Britain has the legal, moral, historic obligation – and power – to do so: to prevent the extermination of the Palestinian people, correct the historical injustices of British colonialism and right the present injustices of Israeli colonialism.
Ending all forms of military, diplomatic, and economic support for Israel’s genocide must be the absolute priority in order to protect Palestinians in Gaza and across Palestine. This must go hand-in-hand with accountability for the countless crimes that have been laid out through hours of testimony yesterday and today. Anything short of this amounts to not only complicity, but participation.
The Gaza Tribunal took place in Westminster, London over the course of Thursday 4th and Friday 5th September 2025, bringing together expert witnesses including Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, journalists, health and aid workers, legal and policy experts and UN officials. The BPC extends its gratitude to the organisers for this important initiative.
The British Palestinian Committee is an independent organisation working to ensure that British Palestinian perspectives are integral to public discourse and policy making on Palestine.