Labour puts pressure on UK government to back ICC probe on Gaza

The UK government is under pressure to change its opposition to a potential probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Shadow Foreign Minister David Lammy has said Labour will back any ICC probes into alleged war crimes by Israel and called on all parties involved in the war in Gaza to stick to international law.

In 2021, the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote to the Conservative Friends of Israel lobby group saying the UK would oppose ICC probes into Israeli actions, because Israel is not a member of the Rome statute, which governs ICC membership, and because Palestine is not considered to be an independent state.

"Allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law should always be treated with utmost seriousness," Lammy said on Sunday, according to The Guardian.

"Assessing specific allegations is the proper task of lawyers and competent international courts. Labour supports the independence of the international criminal court and recognises its jurisdiction to address the conduct of all parties in Gaza."

Labour's leader Keir Starmer has been under fire for rejecting calls for a ceasefire, and instead calling for brief "humanitarian pauses", in line with US and UK government policy.

Lammy appeared to shift from this position and moved toward international calls for an immediate and long-lasting ceasefire.

"Short pauses are a first step but on their own won’t make the impact needed to relieve this humanitarian crisis. The damage to water pipelines and other infrastructure to hospitals need to be rebuilt, and that requires a longer pause. The aid getting into Gaza is still completely insufficient. It is unacceptable that Israel still has not lifted the siege conditions," he said according to The Guardian.

"We need a full and immediate humanitarian pause in the fighting across the whole of Gaza to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians and for Hamas terrorists to release the hostages. The full pause must start now to get sufficient food, water, electricity, medicine and fuel into Gaza and address the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

"Far too many Palestinian civilians and children have been killed and there has been far too much civilian suffering over the past month. Hamas must release the hostages and stop using civilians as human shields and Israel must take urgent, concrete steps to protect civilians."

Israel has imposed a complete siege of Gaza, starving hospitals of medical supplies and fuel needed to run incubators , while civilians have been denied access to basic necessities like clean water and food.

Around 11,500 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its assault on Gaza on 7 October, the vast majority civilians and including thousands of children

Civilian infrastructure - such as hospitals, school and places of worship - has been deliberately targeted and destroyed. Whole neighbourhoods have been destroyed in the Israeli assault on Gaza, with refugee camps and apartment blocks hit in airstrikes.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been ordered out of their homes in the north of the Gaza Strip by Israel, amid fears of ethnic cleansing.

There have been growing calls for the ICC to investigate documented cases of war crimes on both sides, including Hamas's 7 October assault that killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and saw over 200 people taken hostage and taken back to Gaza by the militant group.

While the Conservative Party is all but aligned in backing Israel, the Labour Party is facing internal fissures due to its response to the Gaza war

How Israel's war on Gaza is dividing UK politicshttps://t.co/fv2uEYvcob

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) November 14, 2023

Although Israel is not a member of the ICC, Prosecutor Karim Khan has confirmed that the court has jurisdiction over the occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza. Khan said that the ICC could prosecute Hamas for the 7 October attacks and is monitoring Israel's actions in Gaza.

The Conservative Party and foreign office did not respond to a request for comment on whether it would back an ICC probe into Israeli actions in Gaza.