LONDON: The UK may be complicit in war crimes if it continues to support Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, an MP from the governing Conservative Party has warned.
Crispin Blunt is co-director of the International Center of Justice for Palestinians, which announced a notice of intention this week to prosecute UK government officials for “aiding and abetting war crimes in Gaza.”
He said “everyone must act to restrain people” if they are aware of the potential for war crimes, Sky News reported on Saturday.
Blunt’s warning comes after Israel issued an evacuation notice to northern Gaza’s 1.2 million people, demanding that they evacuate to the south ahead of an expected ground invasion.
He said he is “not sure (his) colleagues have grasped the legal peril they are in” due to steadfast support for Israel, which has enjoyed a “deal of exceptionalism and impunity from international law for a very long time now.”
Changes in international law could make UK officials a party to war crimes, Blunt warned. “If you know that a party is going to commit a war crime — and this forcible transfer of people is a precise breach of one of the statutes that governs international law and all states in this area — then you are making yourself complicit,” he said.
“And as international law has developed in this area, the fact of being complicit makes you equally guilty to the party carrying out the crime.”
Israeli airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip have killed almost 2,000 Palestinians so far, including 583 children. Israel has also cut off the territory from water, food and electricity.
The situation has led to fears of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe, with nowhere for Palestinians to flee.
Blunt said: “What we’re not allowed (to do) is witness one crime being piled on with another, which is going to make the situation worse but is also fundamentally wrong.
“This has got to stop. If in response to the (Hamas) atrocity of last Saturday is an illegal atrocity that is even worse in scale — where does this lead?”
Blunt’s comments come as Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, criticized the UK for giving Israel “carte blanche to do whatever it pleases.”
She told Sky News: “Look at the annexation that has been announced officially this year of large swathes of the West Bank.
“Has anyone reacted to this? Not that I know of, other than in words and half-mouthed condemnations here and there.”
