New testimonies obtained in Gaza reveal Israel’s systematic torture of Palestinians undermining assurances to UK government.
Evidence of ‘depraved’ Israeli war crimes grow as lawyers call on UK government to halt arms sales ahead of court hearing.
21.08.24: In the last week we filed extensive evidence with the High Court in our case with Al-Haq to stop UK arms exports to Israel. This included:
14 witness statements from Palestinian doctors, aid workers, victims of torture, and others including a journalist attacked with a tank whilst reporting and the wife of a doctor tortured to death; we also included testimonies from foreign doctors who had been on medical missions to Gaza, which were collected with the assistance of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians.
800 pages of open-source evidence which included attacks on hospital and medical facilities, objects indispensable for civilian survival, controlled demolitions, sniper attacks, attacks on evacuation routes and burning and looting Palestinian property and much more.
Over 100 pages of statements by Israeli officials stating intent to violate international law, dehumanisation of Palestinians, forcible transfer, calls to resettle Gazans elsewhere and statements of genocidal intent.
"Israeli torture is now so routine it contaminates all intelligence and undermines assurances given to the US and the UK and other governments when considering arms exports" says GLAN Director Dr Gearóid Ó Cuinn.
Systematic Israeli Torture
While gathering witness statements our legal team discovered brutal cases of torture inflicted on Palestinians by Israeli forces, presumably used to justify targeting of medical personnel and facilities. For example, one witness said, “some ambulance drivers confessed under torture that they transported fighters, weapons and captives. The Israelis knew this was not true, but they needed these confessions to film them and show them on media platforms to justify targeting ambulance vehicles and hospitals and also respond to criticism from the international community… Some detainees confessed to things they did not do just to have the torture stop.” The witness, an ambulance driver, also detailed the horrific torture he was subjected to after being detained at a hospital in Gaza.
Our evidence demonstrates that people are being tortured into making false confessions that they are a fighter, or are transporting or hiding fighters, weapons or captives. Israel undoubtedly uses this false information in its military targeting decisions. In turn, this means that UK weapons are likely being used in targeting decisions that have been made on the basis of information derived from torture – which is not only unlawful under international law but renders such military conduct and decision-making wholly unreliable.
A further striking feature of these statements was the internal corroboration of these accounts. For example, an anonymous medical professional says that Israeli soldiers “dragged another patient who had severe injuries on both legs from his bed to the ground” in one statement. Meanwhile, Canadian doctor Ben Thomson testifies that he treated a patient who had been “dragged by his feet and he used the back of his hand to try and protect his face”. This patient required a skin graft on his hand. Similarly, Dr. Khaled Dawas, Consultant General Surgeon at University College London Hospitals, said that during a medical mission to Gaza a patient informed him he had seen “Israeli soldiers grab patients by their external fixators and drag them along the road outside the hospital”.
GLAN Lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe said: “The UK Government has relied heavily on Israel’s assurances which, our evidence indicates, are at least in some cases derived from torture. The process of collecting these witness statements has been shocking. We thought we had seen everything but these witness statements reveal a new layer of depravity we never thought possible.”
Speaking of the extensive open source information filed at the High Court, GLAN Senior Lawyer Dearbhla Minogue said: “the people of Gaza have been left to document their own genocide through social media. At the same time, Israeli soldiers have posted evidence of their own war crimes, taking place in plain sight. GLAN and Al Haq have captured these videos and presented many before the court. We have relied on the dedicated Palestinian journalists who have risked and lost their lives in the act of filming these attacks for the world.”
The UK Must Act Now
The government must do the right thing and end arms exports now. The astounding scale of evidence of Israeli atrocity crimes must force the UK government to stop weapons exports, particularly in light of the latest ICJ advisory opinion that nations must not render assistance in maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation and its duty to act to prevent unfolding genocide. The WHO has highlighted the risk of diseases including polio, which is now taking hold in Gaza, while Israel has created widespread famine which is taking lives, the burden highest on babies and children, only making the need to end this man-made humanitarian catastrophe more urgent.
Every day that the UK continues to supply weapons to Israel it deepens its complicity in Israel’s atrocity crimes. According to UK rules and international law British arms exports should have been suspended months ago. Just yesterday Israel conducted strikes on another school and one of the last markets, essential for civilian survival, in Gaza, killing civilians and further cutting off access to food aid. The new Labour government pushed for the release of legal advice on arms exports to Israel while in opposition but have not followed through with this in government – they must not wait for our court hearing in October while Israel continues to kill more and more children, women and men every day.
The claimant in this case is Al-Haq, with interventions from Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and Amnesty International UK. The case is supported by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians and has benefitted from Campaign Against Arms Trade’s unique expertise in the form of a witness statement. GLAN's lawyers Dearbhla Minogue and Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe represent Al-Haq in their capacity as consultants at Bindmans LLP, and are supervised by Alice Hardy.
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