Declassified documents show UK aware of Israeli war crimes for 24 years

Files from the UK Foreign Office, released in 2024 and highlighted in an investigation by Declassified UK, show British diplomats raising deep concerns about Israeli military conduct in the occupied West Bank as early as March 2002. The documents, written during Tony Blair’s premiership amid Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield, record officials describing a recurring pattern of rights violations, direct threats to aid workers and troubling battlefield tactics that frequently harmed civilians. British assessments at the time noted large-scale civilian casualties — roughly 500 killed and 1,500 wounded in a single month — and detailed instances in which medical staff and humanitarian vehicles faced intimidation and obstruction. A senior British army officer in the files criticised the discipline and behaviour of Israeli forces and described uses of force that produced fatal civilian injuries. Those contemporaneous warnings were reportedly taken to Israeli officials, with Lord Michael Levy, Blair’s special envoy, telling then-defence ministers that a purely military approach would exacerbate violence. Despite those early appraisals, subsequent UK policy showed intermittent restrictions rather than sustained embargoes. The Blair government briefly suspended some arms exports in 2002 after concluding British equipment was being used in occupied territory contrary to assurances. Later governments carried out limited licence revocations during major Gaza offensives — for example, the revocations cited during the 2008–09 and 2014 campaigns — but large-scale suspensions did not follow. By September 2024, with tens of thousands reported killed in the latest Gaza campaign, the UK under Keir Starmer had suspended a small portion of its Israel arms licences, amid reports that munitions continued to reach Israeli forces. The files also place those two-decade-old warnings alongside recent institutional findings: the World Health Organization has recorded thousands of attacks on healthcare across the occupied Palestinian territory over the past 20 years, with most of the deadliest incidents occurring in recent years. Against that backdrop, the UK and 11 other countries moved in 2024 to impose restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank — a policy shift commentators and campaigners say marks a more assertive stance than much of the United Kingdom’s recent record on arms and settlements.