UK's failure to act enabled Israel’s 'genocide' in Gaza, says Amnesty

Amnesty is urging the UK government to take 'take urgent and meaningful steps to prevent Israel's genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza'.
2 min read
27 January, 2025
Last Update
27 January, 2025 12:37 PM
Pro-Palestine campaigners from Amnesty International gather with placards and banners to protest the UK's licensing of arms transfers to Israel in London [GETTY]

Amnesty International has called out the UK government's "disregard for its legal obligations" in preventing genocide had allowed Israel to continue with its war with no accountability.

The UK-based rights watchdog urged Keir Starmer's government to "take urgent and meaningful steps" to prevent Israel's "genocidal" acts against Palestinians in Gaza as an obligation to the Genocide Convention as a State Party.

"The genocide against the Palestinian people is a matter of law and evidence, not opinion," Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, said in a statement.

"Prime Minister Keir Starmer must accept the UK’s obligations to prevent Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and help ensure there is justice and accountability," Deshmukh said.

The statement came as the watchdog marked the first anniversary of the International Court of Justice's ruling of a plausible risk that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

"The UK government should have taken heed of this extremely significant ICJ ruling the day it was announced," Deshmukh said.

"UK inaction and disregard for its international obligations to prevent genocide contributed to Israel’s impunity and risked British complicity in serious crimes against international law."

"The UK has a legal obligation to use all reasonable means to help prevent genocide and be consistent when supporting international law – just as it has done when calling out crimes carried out by Russian forces," Amnesty said.

The rights group concluded in its December 2024 report that Israel had committed, and continues to commit, genocide in Gaza following Israel’s war on Gaza, a probe rejected by Israel and the group's Israel branch.

The group found that the state has harmed and killed civilians, as well as blocked aid, failing to attack Hamas members like they said they would lawfully.

The report showed how Israel has carried out acts that are prohibited under the Genocide Convention, treating Gazans “as a subhuman group” with “intent to physically destroy them”.

Israel’s war has killed over 47,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with the United Nations finding the toll is mostly women and children.

Despite the war coming to a ceasefire on 19 January, Israel continues to target Palestinians, focusing on the occupied West Bank and continuing its now week-long offensive on Jenin city and its refugee camp.