The ICJP’s criminal complaint identified British government ministers, private individuals and Israeli officials as being complicit in the ongoing humanitarian crises in Gaza.
Speaking to Doha News, a barrister at London’s 33 Bedford Row Chambers who is instructed to act as chief counsel for the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), discussed their war crimes complaint filed to New Scotland Yard.
“The ICJP has its own Investigation Unit,” Haydee Dijkstal said. “The Unit has been working very hard to collect extensive information and evidence about crimes that are being committed.”
During a press briefing on Tuesday, the ICJP’s Director, Tayab Ali, said that their complaint “furnishes sufficient evidence for the police to initiate an investigation and to arrest named individuals within the complaint for questioning.”
According to the London-based Palestine advocacy group, 12 British and Israeli officials should stand trial for complicity and committing war crimes in Gaza.
Ali revealed that the complaint submitted to New Scotland Yard identified “nine UK citizens who are allegedly fighting with the [Israeli forces] and four UK government officials.”
As the case is still pending, individuals listed in the complaint will not be made public.
This was a firm decision taken by the ICJP to enable the court of law, rather than the court of public opinion, to make a final judgement as to their file.
“We’ve decided firmly that we’d like to allow and support the police in carrying out this investigation and having that space to do so without the interference from public dialogue about what’s happened,” Haydee told Doha News.
She added that if, at a later stage, it becomes within the public interest to reveal the names of the individuals identified within their 78-paged dossier, the ICJP will review this current decision.
While at the press briefing last week, Dijkstal said the UK’s legal framework allows for Britons and UK residents to be investigated, and potentially prosecuted, for crimes committed outside of the UK.
“Under the legal principle of Universal Jurisdiction, the UK’s Metropolitan Police in Scotland Yard can investigate crimes committed by suspects — even if they were committed outside of the UK,” she said.
The war crimes highlighted in the ICJP file focus on four main categories, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
According to the latest estimations by Palestine’s Health Ministry, Israel’s relentless onslaught on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 25,000 people since October 7.
However, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s figures are far grimmer. The human rights watchdog said in a statistics infographic published on Friday that after taking into account those trapped under rubble and presumed dead, 32,246 Palestinians have been killed. At least 29,720 of the casualties were civilians, Euro-Med added.
Other areas that pertain to the ICJP’s complaint include indiscriminate attacks on civilian property, intentional attacks on protected property, and starvation and the denial of humanitarian needs and necessities.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) stated that the violent aggressor has destroyed at least 60% of the enclaves’ homes, three churches and 105 mosques.
UN OCHA’s report added that Israel’s aerial, land and sea offensives have crippled Gaza’s health sector — drastically reducing the number of functional hospitals in the Strip from 36 to just 15.
Yet, the remaining 15 are only partially functional, given the critical shortages of medicine, fuel, blood products and no supplies of electricity from Israel.
At least 2.2 million of the enclave’s survivors are also thought to be facing an “imminent risk” of famine.
When asked whether said crimes may amount to acts and omissions of genocide, Dijkstal to Doha News explained that, “While the crime of genocide is available to courts such as the International Criminal Court or under the Genocide Convention, genocide is not available under universal jurisdiction in the UK as a crime that the Metropolitan Police can look into.”
However, she added that the ICJP’s investigation of crimes committed in Gaza will remain ongoing.
This includes gathering evidence from eyewitness testimonies from people in Gaza who experienced these war crimes firsthand, as well as from British nationals who have loved ones in the enclave who can detail the harrowing experiences they heard from their families.
Video and photographic footage were also a key feature in the ICJP’s complaint. “There’s so much evidence that’s available — especially when we look at posts from social media,” Dijkstal said.
“However, we made sure to collate the information in a way that can be preserved and used for our legal proceedings.”
Their file also calls for investigations into Britons, nationals and residents, who travelled to Israel to join and fight for the Israeli forces in Gaza.
In the UK, the 2019 revocation of Shamima Begum’s British citizenship by former Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, set a new legal precedent in the United Kingdom.
Aged 15, in 2015, Begum left London via Turkey for Syria to join the so-called Islamic State.
Despite being a minor, and evidence suggesting she was groomed into leaving the UK, Begum was denounced by the Home Secretary as posing “a sufficient threat to national security.”
When asked if the ICJP foresees suspected British war criminals having their citizenship revoked, Dijkstal explained that such a decision lies within the realm of national politics.
“That’s not what this complaint is about at all,” she added. “This complaint is purely about following the law and following the legal procedure to achieve accountability.”