MORE than 800 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges, have called on the UK government to impose sanctions on the Israeli government and its ministers and seek its suspension from the UN.
In a letter to Starmer the jurists welcome his joint statement last week with the leaders of France and Canada warning that they were prepared to take ‘concrete actions’ against Israel.
However, they urge him to act without delay in this regard as ‘urgent and decisive action is required to avert the destruction of the Palestinian people of Gaza.’
The signatories, including former supreme court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, court of appeal judges and more than 70 King’s Counsels, say that war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law are being committed in Palestine.
‘There is mounting evidence of genocide, which is either being perpetrated or at a minimum at serious risk of occurring,’ their letter states, highlighting recent comments by the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who said Israel’s army would ‘wipe out what remains of Palestinian Gaza’.
‘All states, including the UK, are legally obliged to take all reasonable steps within their power to prevent and punish genocide; to ensure respect for international humanitarian law; and to bring to an end violations of (the right to self-determination).
‘The UK’s actions to date have failed to meet those standards … The international community’s failure to uphold international law in relation to the occupied Palestinian territory contributes to a deteriorating international climate of lawlessness and impunity and imperils the international legal system itself.
‘Your government must act now before it is too late,’ the signatories tell Starmer.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced last week the suspension of negotiations over a new free trade deal with Israel, but the jurists’ two-page letter, backed by a 35-page legal memorandum, says he must go further, faster by reviewing existing trade ties, suspending the 2030 roadmap for closer UK-Israel partnership and imposing trade sanctions.
The legal experts call on him to immediately sanction Israeli ministers or senior officials in the Israeli military establishment whom they accuse of having incited genocide or supporting and sponsoring illegal settlements.
They note that so far financial sanctions and travel bans have been limited to individual settlers, settler outposts and settler organisations.
The letter highlights that Israel has been responsible for ‘an unparalleled assault on the United Nations’.
It points to Israel’s banning of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which it calls the ‘backbone of aid’ for the Palestinian people, from operating in the occupied territory and its ‘attacks on UN premises, property and personnel’.
These acts are said to ‘go beyond isolated breaches. They amount to a broader challenge to the UN charter system itself.’
The letter says that the limited aid allowed a few days ago into Gaza ‘remains gravely insufficient to address the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe’.
In order to meet its legal obligations, Britain is also urged in the letter to secure an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the resumption of aid and the lifting of Israel’s ban on UNRWA.
Finally, it says Britain should confirm that it would execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Meanwhile, a group of 300 prominent French writers has issued a powerful public statement condemning the genocide being carried out by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip, declaring that continued silence amounts to complicity.
In an open letter published in the French newspaper Libération, the signatories called for immediate sanctions against Israel and urged global leaders and the public to stop using vague descriptors such as ‘horror’ or ‘atrocities’ and instead name the reality as it is: genocide.
‘It is time to use precise language. What is happening in Gaza is genocide,’ the writers stated, emphasising that euphemisms only serve to obscure the scale of Israel’s crimes.
The letter calls for an immediate ceasefire, justice for the Palestinian people, the release of both Israeli captives and the thousands of Palestinians arbitrarily detained in Israeli prisons, and an urgent international effort to stop what they describe as a genocide in which ‘each and every one of us bears responsibility’.
The statement comes amid escalating Israeli aggression. On March 18, Israel resumed its genocide in Gaza after reneging on a ceasefire agreement.
Since then, over 3,800 Palestinians have been martyred and nearly 11,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
The letter states: ‘We, the writers, have been slow to speak with one voice. Some of us have signed petitions and joined protests.
‘But today, we speak not because the life of a writer is more valuable than others – but because the murder of a writer is a form of censorship and cultural erasure,’ the letter reads.
The authors stressed that the writers of Gaza serve as the living memory of a people, offering the world testimony, history, and humanisation in the face of mass dehumanisation.
‘When a poet is killed, an archive is destroyed. A testimony is silenced. A memory is lost. Today, words are attacked like bodies. Words are erased, just as the living are erased,’ they wrote.
On May 18, the Israeli occupation army launched a new phase of its campaign, dubbed ‘Gideon’s Chariots’, aimed at completing the occupation of Gaza, according to statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Since October 7, 2023, with the US support, Israel has been carrying out what human rights groups and legal experts describe as an ongoing genocide in Gaza.
More than 175,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded, the vast majority of them women and children, with over 11,000 still missing and hundreds of thousands displaced.
- United Nations human rights experts have rebuked a new Israeli law authorising Palestinian children as young as 12 years old to be sentenced to life imprisonment, stressing that the ruling is in contravention of international human rights standards.
The UN experts voiced concern about Youth Law (Adjudication, Punishment and Methods of Treatment) (Amendment No. 25 – Temporary Provisions) recently ratified in the Israeli parliament, Knesset, which permits life imprisonment for 12-year-olds if they were convicted of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist acts’ in the occupying regime’s courts.
The experts also highlighted that alongside the controversial rule, another law – the National Insurance Law (Amendment No 251) (Revoking Allowances for a Child Imprisoned due to Terrorist Offence) – allows the illegal entity to suspend financial aid meant for children’s welfare, further impacting vulnerable groups.
‘We are concerned that the amendments and laws are inconsistent with the right of children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child,’ the UN human rights officials said.
‘We underline that any measures taken to combat terrorism and violent extremism, including incitement of and support for terrorist acts, must comply with all obligations under international human rights and international humanitarian law.’
According to the experts, Israeli military laws already allows the regime to detain Palestinian children aged 12 and above in the occupied West Bank, but the new legislation significantly escalates penalties, with courts empowered to hand down life sentences for crimes if they are linked to terrorism.
The UN human rights officials called on the Tel Aviv regime to immediately review and revoke the harsh laws, stressing that imprisoning children for life is a violation of international standards and human dignity.
They also urged global actors to put pressure on Israel to respect children’s rights and protect their welfare, stressing the need for urgent international attention to safeguard the rights of Palestinian children and promote peace and justice.
Both laws were passed in November 2024 amid heightened tensions in the region, especially affecting Palestinian children living under occupation in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, slammed the laws at the time, characterising the experiences of Palestinian minors in Israeli detention as extreme and often inhumane.
Albanese said Palestinian minors in Israeli custody are ‘tormented often beyond the breaking point’ and that ‘generations of Palestinians will carry the scars and trauma from the Israeli mass incarceration system’.
Official reports said a record 37 per cent of all Palestinian child detainees are held in administrative detention without charge or trial, while Israeli authorities enact systematic restrictions on access to legal counsel, family visits, and parliamentary oversight.
As many as 323 Palestinian children have been detained in Israeli prisons since March 31, the latest data available from the Israel Prison Service (IPS), which is the highest number since 2017.
Since the onset of the Gaza war in October 2023, the Israeli regime has turned prisons and detention centres into ‘death chambers,’ the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs in Gaza said.
Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, and other forms of abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been normalised across Israel’s jail system, the ministry added.
