At a Gaza tribunal, an Oxford surgeon accused the UK of failing civilians by allowing F-35 jets with British parts to bomb children he was operating on.
Independent of the government and parliament, the two-day London tribunal is attempting to gather proof that Britain has failed to disassociate itself from what the tribunal's organizers believe to be Israeli war crimes that qualify as genocide.
The tribunal is set up to examine alleged atrocities in Gaza, Britain's legal obligations, any evidence of the UK's covert support for Israel, and whether the government's actions align with any legal obligations to prevent a genocide. It is chaired by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and two academics from Britain.
Prof. Nick Maynard said Thursday that Britain's continued cooperation in what he claimed were intentional attacks on Gaza's youngsters was unacceptable.
“I’ve been in these hospitals, I’ve had unlimited access to every square inch of these hospitals and it is inconceivable to me that they are being used as Hamas command centres,” he said.
“This propaganda has been repeated by our media, been repeated by our government, yet there is no verifiable, remotely credible evidence to support these contentions.”
He said he had often provided evidence to the British government of the deliberate targeting of health workers as well as how the daily clustering of specific wounds seemed to him to show Israeli soldiers used the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution points to undertake target practice on parts of teenage bodies including testicles, chest and abdomen.
“This daily clustering of injuries to particular body parts was beyond coincidence … It was clear evidence of target practice by Israeli soldiers on these young teenage boys,”
he claimed.
Although the Israeli government maintains that it does not target children or civilians, it claims that Hamas, which carried out the October 7 attacks and continues to hold Israeli captives, has made its job more difficult by integrating itself among the civilian population.
Afterwards, Dr. Victoria Rose, a consultant plastic surgeon at London's St. Thomas' Hospital who has made three trips to Gaza, told the tribunal about having to perform surgery on children under the age of ten without the use of anesthesia.
She added that 60–90% of medical volunteers are not allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli government. Israel prohibited medical volunteers from entering Gaza with basic supplies or medications, and occasionally it would abruptly stop a medical team waiting to enter from Jordan.
She listed a typical morning schedule in which she operated on six children with body parts blown off, from an 18-month-old with 15% burns to a 5-year-old girl with her arm blown off, whose sister had lost her left cheek and shoulder.
Opening the tribunal, Corbyn said:
“The truth needs to be told and information needs to be provided and if parliament won’t effectively inquire into what is going on, then the tribunal might be able to do so.”
The British government has not fulfilled its responsibility to terminate the occupation of Palestine, which was ruled unlawful by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, according to Francesca Albanese, the UN Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories.
She asserted that if it is discovered that UK government officials have maintained economic relationships, weaponry transfers, or information exchanges with Israel, they might face personal accountability.
The UK government has asserted that it is unable to assign
blame for specific occurrences due to the complexity of the material. The
director of Airwars, Emily Tripp, disputed this, claiming that her tiny
organization was specifically accountable for 1,300 instances of civilian
injury.
How does the UK justify its military role in Gaza despite alleged war crimes?
The UK claims that Israel operates in a context where it is encountering real security threats from Hamas, which it views as a terrorist organization; hence the military support it provides as part of a strategic cooperation agreement to promote regional security and counter terrorism.
UK officials indicate that they would only supply arms, and provide intelligence and military cooperation, on the basis that the UK would ensure compliance with the rules of international humanitarian law and that the Government of the UK would prompt Israel to limit civilian harm.
The UK states it will balance military cooperation with
humanitarian assistance; it has committed tens of millions of pounds in
humanitarian support to Palestinian civilians while urging Israel to allow the
safe delivery of humanitarian aid and adhere to ceasefires.