Nearly two years into Israel's genocide against the Palestinians in occupied Gaza, the former foreign secretary, David Lammy, said in a letter to the Chair of the International Development Select Committee that the UK had concluded that it does not assess there to be a risk of genocide in Gaza. At best, this is a cynical misrepresentation of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) 2024 ruling. At worst, it’s straight-up genocide denial.
In that ruling, the ICJ issued provisional measures ordering Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide Convention and prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide. The Court’s decision clearly indicates that even back then, the survival of Palestinians in Gaza was at risk.
Israel has openly defied the Court's binding orders. Instead, it has accelerated its campaign with increased ferocity by manufacturing a famine, amidst relentless bombardment and mass forced displacement orders.
All states, including the UK, have a clear legal obligation to do all in their power to prevent and punish genocide. By now, the UK should have long since moved past the stage of assessing 'risk'. The evidence is overwhelming: Israel is clearly committing genocide, and this is increasingly the consensus among international legal experts and human rights organisations.
This raises a critical question: how can the UK government still fail to recognise, at the very minimum, the risk that Israel is committing genocide?
Genocide risk assessment
Amnesty submitted a freedom of information request asking the government for its own assessment on the risk of genocide in Gaza. The government failed to respond within the agreed timeframe, which prompted us to escalate this matter to the Information Commissioner's Office.
On 10 September, nine days after Lammy's infamous letter, the FCDO replied to us – we had asked three simple questions:
a) If an assessment of whether there is a serious risk Israel is committing Genocide in Gaza has been conducted by government officials since October 2023.
b) When the most recent assessment of whether there is a serious risk Israel is committing Genocide in Gaza was conducted by government officials.
c) Whether any future assessment of whether there is a serious risk Israel is committing Genocide in Gaza will be conducted by government Officials in 2025.
We understand that an assessment of the risk of genocide was conducted in June 2024, as confirmed in the UK government's skeleton argument in Al-Haq v Secretary of State for Business and Trade, which stated "The FCDO's assessment and the government's conclusion [is] ... that there was no serious risk of genocide occurring."
The FCDO responded to us, saying: "..any formal determination as to whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a competent national or international court, and not for governments or non-judicial bodies. However, export licensing decisions include consideration against the UK's obligations under international law, including where relevant the Genocide Convention. So, in the context of export licensing, we have carefully collated, reviewed and assessed relevant evidence concerning the Gaza conflict. The action we have taken is consistent with our legal obligations and we remain wholly committed to international law."
No intent?
Rubbing salt into the wounds, Lammy's letter to the Select Committee Chair says: ‘As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.’
Amnesty International's landmark 2024 Genocide report looked at the totality of available evidence holistically to assess whether Israel committed prohibited acts with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. The report's analysis follows the ICJ's jurisprudence on genocide, which in turn relies on the case law of international criminal tribunals. According to the jurisprudence, genocidal intent may be assessed based on direct evidence or, in its absence, inferred from indirect or circumstantial evidence.
To establish Israel's specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, we considered the overall pattern of Israel's conduct in Gaza, dehumanising and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials, and the context of Israel's system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and the unlawful military occupation of the Palestinian territory.
We analysed the overall pattern of the state of Israel's conduct in Gaza, notably the repeated, direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and deliberately indiscriminate strikes, the scale and speed of damage and destruction to Palestinian homes, shelters, health facilities, water and sanitation infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural property, the scale and intensity of this destruction, combined with the staggering civilian death toll, the repeated use of explosive weapons with wide area effect in densely populated residential areas, the repeated use of sweeping and often misleading "evacuation" orders, the torture and incommunicado detention of Palestinians from Gaza and the continuous refusal to allow adequate humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
We considered all these factors within the wider context of Israel's system of apartheid, unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory and the unlawful blockade it has imposed on Gaza – this is an architecture of oppression that has caused immense suffering and denied Palestinians their rights.
Amnesty researchers reviewed dozens of statements issued by Israeli government and military officials since 7 October 2023 that dehumanised Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. We identified many statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent.
The report applies the "only reasonable inference" standard employed by the ICJ to infer intent from a pattern of conduct. Despite Israel's stated military aim to defeat Hamas and release the hostages, international law indicates that a state can act with genocidal intent while at the same time pursuing additional goals.
Even if military goals were being pursued by Israel, the totality of evidence indicates that the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the pattern of Israel's conduct in Gaza is that it was also seeking to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as such. This means its military offensive and related acts and omissions in Gaza have been conducted with genocidal intent.
This conclusion was further reinforced in a report by a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which found that Israeli authorities and forces have committed and are continuing to commit genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip.
This damning report provides yet more confirmation of what Amnesty, genocide scholars, and others have been concluding for months and what the UK has been shamefully refusing or denying.
There is no more time for excuses from Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, and the UK government. The evidence of Israel's genocide continues to mount, and the UK government cannot credibly claim it didn't know.
These findings must compel them to take immediate action, and the UK government must fulfil its legal and moral obligation to stop Israel's genocide. This means exerting all possible diplomatic, economic, and political pressure to ensure an immediate and lasting ceasefire, as well as unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza.
It means halting all arms and security transfers to Israel, to re-evaluate their trade ties with Israel to ensure they are not contributing to Israel's genocide in Gaza, apartheid, other crimes against humanity or war crimes, or the unlawful occupation of the OPT.
The stakes cannot be higher. The very existence of Palestinians in Gaza and possibly the wider occupied Palestinian territory is under threat. The scale of death and destruction has already been catastrophic, but we are at a juncture where states like the UK have the tools to prevent further crimes but are still refusing to use them. History - and the courts - are watching.
Kristyan Benedict is Amnesty International UK’s Crisis Response Manager.
Follow Kristyan on Twitter/X: @KreaseChan
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