UK citizens who have fought in the Israeli military could face prosecutions in Britain as top lawyers warned that “war criminals walk freely among us”.
The International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has announced it will seek to bring private prosecutions against Britons who have served in the Israeli military.
At a press conference on Tuesday, ICJP director Tayab Ali, also head of international law at Bindmans, said the organisation aimed to ensure that “suspected war criminals will not be safe from arrest and prosecution anywhere in the world”.
The ICJP will bring evidence to Crown prosecutors requesting that charges be brought against those suspected of committing war crimes and, where this fails, the group will bring its own private prosecutions against individual, Ali said.
Referencing efforts last year to bring cases against UK Government ministers and officials “who we accused of complicity in Israel’s war crimes”, Ali said: “This year, however, we are prepared to take direct legal action, without involving the police at all against British citizens who have joined the IDF or who are otherwise implicated in war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.
“We will announce within weeks our first private prosecution in a UK court, work that will be replicated across the world.”
Ali (above) added: “We are creating legal groups ready to take action in country after country until we have a team ready to act in every state across the globe.
"Suspected war criminals will not be safe from arrest and prosecution anywhere in the world. Our mission is simple: Where international courts have failed to act, we will act.”
The ICJP has also launched its initiative in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Malaysia and Norway – aiming to create an international network as part of its Global 195 project.
Ali said the ICJP had recruited former Metropolitan Police officers and former prosecutors to ensure that the evidence the group provided to the authorities was high-quality enough to result in prosecutions.
He refused to say exactly who the organisation would be targeting, citing concerns it could put individuals and cases at risk and would only say that the number of people identified in the UK was “in the tens”.
Ali said: “We won’t be engaged in publicly announcing the names of individuals because the objective here is not to bring danger to individuals or hate to individuals that are suspected of war crimes.
“The objective here is to bring accountability and justice and therefore prosecute these individuals.
"The way the mechanism works is that once we obtain an arrest warrant, that individual will be in court in the usual process, as per any other suspected criminal, and at that point journalists will have access to the courts and will be able to report on those individuals.”
The announcement came as Israel shattered the ceasefire in Gaza by launching overnight bombing raids which health authorities in the devastated territory said killed at least 413 people.
There are no up-to-date estimates on the number of UK citizens who are currently serving in the Israeli military, according to the ICJP.
However Nefesh B’Nefesh, the organisation which facilitates immigration to Israel said at the end of 2021 there were 90 British volunteers in the country's military.
