LONDON: The UK must issue sanctions on the Israeli government and push for its suspension from the UN, a group of more than 800 senior lawyers, former judges and academics has said.
They added that this would encourage Israel to meet its “fundamental international legal obligations” amid international outrage over the war in Gaza, The Guardian reported.
The appeal came in a letter to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who delivered a joint statement last week alongside the leaders of France and Canada threatening Israel with “concrete actions.”
Starmer must act without delay and take “urgent and decisive action ... to avert the destruction of the Palestinian people of Gaza,” the letter said.
It was signed by figures including former Supreme Court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, Court of Appeal judges and more than 70 king’s counsels.
They accuse Israel of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law against Palestinians.
The letter warned that there is mounting evidence in Gaza of genocide, which is either being perpetrated or at serious risk of taking place.
It cited recent comments by Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, who said the country’s military would “wipe out” the presence of Palestinian life in 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 letter said.
“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.”
Last week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended negotiations over a new free trade agreement with Israel.
But he must place further pressure by reviewing existing trade links, imposing sanctions and suspending the 2030 strategy for building closer UK-Israel ties, the letter said.
Israeli ministers and senior military officials must be immediately placed under sanctions, signatories said, accusing them of inciting genocide and sponsoring illegal settlement-building.
Israel has also carried out “an unparalleled assault on the UN,” the letter said, highlighting its banning of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and repeated “attacks on UN premises, property and personnel.” The Israeli strategy points to a “broader challenge to the UN charter system itself,” it added.
Signatory Guy Goodwin-Gill, emeritus fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford, said: “Now is the time for the UK to show its commitment to the rule of law and to a future in which Palestinians can freely fulfil their right to self-determination.
“Everyone must be free from persecution, from displacement and ethnic cleansing, from the devastation and death deliberately inflicted on them in their homes, schools and hospitals, in their farms and villages. No one should ever be a refugee in their own land.”
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since October 2023.
The letter to Starmer adds further pressure on him to take action against Israel amid mounting international anger over Gaza.
A significant number of MPs from both the ruling Labour Party and opposition Conservative Party have said the UK’s recent actions do not go far enough.
