No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Read our Monthly Magazine
And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Has the UK changed its position on Israel and International Humanitarian Law?
Two weeks ago, the Trade Minister, Chris Bryant said something that appears to mark a significant shift in the British government’s position on the legality of Israel’s conduct throughout its bombardment of Gaza.
On 29 January, Independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley, Iqbal Mohhamed, asked in Parliament how the Government could justify considering unblocking some of the suspended arms licenses to Israel as part of “a path to a sustainable peace” when Israel had, at the time of his question, killed 481 Palestinians in Gaza since the signing of the ceasefire agreement.
In response, Chris Bryant replied that: “We have suspended some licences, in particular where we think that because of Israel’s failure to comply with International Humanitarian Law they might be used in relation to operations in Gaza”.
This was an apparent admission that the Government believes Israel has broken, or “failed to comply with” International Humanitarian Law (IHL), yet in March last year, when the then Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the House of Commons that Israel’s blockade of aid into Gaza violated IHL, he was censured by Downing Street. A spokesperson for Downing Street publicly rebuked Lammy’s assertion that Israel had broken IHL, claiming that Israel was merely “at risk” of doing so in the context of the blockade.
Similarly, a few months earlier in September 2024, when the UK Government suspended 30 arms export licenses to Israel (the licenses to which Mohhamed was referring in his parliamentary question), the reason given was that there was a “clear risk that certain military exports to Israel might be used in violations of International Humanitarian Law”. The implication being that the Government was not certain that Israel was violating IHL.
Palestine Action Ban Branded ‘Absurd and Dangerous’ as Group Asks High Court to Overturn Proscription
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the High Court in order to oppose the ban on the direct action group, Olly Haynes reports
Yet two weeks have passed since Bryant stated in the chamber that Israel had indeed “failed to comply” with IHL, and that that failure was the reason that the arms licenses were suspended. Bryant’s statement could have been a mistake with the minister getting the position of the Government wrong, however it has gone without correction or withdrawal.
Byline Times repeatedly called and emailed the Department of Business and Trade’s press office, and was told that they are still working on a response to our question of whether the UK Government has changed its position vis-à-vis Israel’s compliance with IHL. No response has yet been received.
This week, it emerged that the Health Secretary Wes Streeting had privately told Peter Mandelson that it would be morally impossible to vote against the recognition of a Palestinian state “because Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes”.
The texts entered the public sphere through Streeting leaking some of his own exchanges with Mandelson to the Guardian. They suggest that, privately at least, some Government ministers believed Israel to be violating international law, even while the Government’s public position was that it was uncertain.
Streeting has not been disciplined either for the leaking of the messages, nor their contents. Streeting’s messages emerged after Bryant’s statement in the House of Commons. The lack of correction to the statements of either minister suggests that the Government’s position may have shifted, though until the government states its position formally it remains unclear.
Regarding Bryant’s statement and the government’s lack of transparency, Iqbal Mohhamed said: “In the same breath that the Government accidentally told the truth and admitted that Israel was breaking IHL, they defended the continuation of arms exports to Israel. This is totally detached from reality”.
“And with Streeting’s private text messages to Mandelson, we’ve seen the same story again: this is not an inability to grasp the facts but a total unwillingness to take responsibility, address it head on, and end UK complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Gaza ‘Humanitarian’ Hub to Function More as US Military Command Centre, Leaked Papers Suggest
The leaked documents suggest Trump’s plans for a ‘humanitarian relief’ centre for Gaza more closely resemble those for a US Army-run command post
Dr Zena Agha, the interim director of the British Palestinian Committee, also took the position that Bryant’s statement was an accident.
She told Byline Times: “My interpretation would be that it was actually a slip of the tongue. It indicated what the government’s real position is, but it was at odds with the public messaging around its position on the genocide, not least because admitting that Israel was violating and in breach of international law would implicate the UK Government, which continues to give diplomatic and military cover to the Israeli state, which explains why there is, or seems to be, an attempt to stymie any conversation around this. They’re hoping that this will go away and that the slip of the tongue won’t be picked up or remarked upon”.
She added: “I think it does signal a shift by the British Government to acknowledge what everyone already knows, which is that these are violations of international law”.
Bryant’s statement and Streeting’s messages, if they are indeed now official policy, represent a contradiction for the UK Government. They could be taken as an admission of complicity in war crimes and the violation of IHL, given the diplomatic and material support the UK has offered to Israel throughout the period following 07 October 2023, which included surveillance flights of Gaza and shipments of military hardware.
A prominent international lawyer raised the issue of admitting legal complicity as soon as Streeting’s messages were published.
On 09 February, Tayib Ali, head of International Law at Bindmans, a legal firm that has participated in the court cases against the UK Government over arms sales to Israel, tweeted: “That admission is sufficient to establish knowledge of the commission of international crimes. From that point onward, continued material, political or diplomatic support is capable of satisfying the mens rea requirement for secondary liability, including aiding and abetting and other forms of accessory criminal responsibility under international criminal law.”
According to one report, published in May 2025, the UK continued shipping munitions of war to Israel despite the suspension of arms licenses.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote to Streeting after the publication of the messages, urging Streeting to cooperate in exposing the UK’s “complicity in genocide” in Gaza.
Corbyn told Byline Times: “The importance of this minister’s latest admission should not be understated. In admitting Israel has committed war crimes, the government is admitting its own complicity. Whether the Foreign Secretary admits it or not, the government knows full well that Israel has breached international law, and needs to be held to account for the role it has played in one of the greatest crimes of our time.”
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.