‘Propping up apartheid’: UK failing legal duties on Palestine, new briefing warns

A hard-hitting new legal briefing has accused Britain of breaching binding legal duties under the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 advisory opinion, which found that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.

Published by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) and the Labour Muslim Network, Priority Measures for UK Policy on Palestine sets out six priority areas in which it says the UK’s foreign and domestic policies are “not consistently adhering” to the law. 

The six priority areas are illegal Israeli settlements; the funding and protection of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA; the protection of Palestinian access to religious sites, including Al-Aqsa Mosque and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem; the suspension of arms exports supporting Israeli military operations; a UK-led initiative at the UN Security Council to establish an international protective presence for Palestinian civilians in the West Bank; and accountability for British nationals serving in the Israeli military.

The briefing draws heavily on the 2024 ICJ judgment. The UN Court ruled that the UK, along with all other third states, is bound by clear and present obligations: not to recognise as lawful the situation created by Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied territory, not to render aid or assistance in maintaining it, to distinguish in its dealings between Israel and the territory it occupies, and to cooperate to bring the unlawful situation to an end. The briefing’s central charge is that Britain is failing all four duties at once.

Nowhere is that clearer, the briefing argues, than in the money and infrastructure still flowing between Britain and the settlement economy. It points to UK-based financial institutions investing in companies that sustain the settlement enterprise, to UK defence contracts running through firms such as Elbit Systems that feed the F-35 supply chain Israel has used to carry out the Gaza genocide.

A highly controversial London property event marketing homes in illegal settlements was also cited in the report as evidence of Britains failure to uphold its obligations. Held in Edgware United Synagogue in June 2026, the event saw estate agents advertise homes in Maale Adumim and Givat Zeev, and in occupied East Jerusalem, as discounted “Anglo-communities” for English-speaking buyers. 

More than 100 MPs urged the government to intervene, the Mayor of London said any allegations of unlawful sales would be investigated by the Met, and protests outside led to 15 arrests.

The scale of that entanglement was underlined last week by a separate Al Jazeera investigation, which found that 17 companies with ties to illegal Israeli settlements hold 125 UK public-sector contracts worth more than £2.1 billion ($2.85 billion), including a £1.7 billion ($2.30 billion) emergency-services communications deal with Motorola Solutions, whose Airwave Solutions arm underpins the radio network used by British police and ambulance crews. 

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Motorola Solutions itself supplies the security, surveillance and command-and-control systems used by settlement councils and municipalities including Ariel, Kiryat Arba and the Jordan Valley Regional Council, according to the UN’s database of businesses operating in the settlements. 

Other named beneficiaries include the construction giant Heidelberg Materials, the transport firm Egis, which runs DVLA contracts, and the rail manufacturer CAF, supplier of West Midlands Metro trams. 

Commenting on these revelations, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “Quite simply, the UK government is propping up apartheid”. LSE international law professor Stephen Humphreys was no less damning: “Evidence is growing that the UK may be in breach of its international obligations by continuing to contract with entities identified by the UN.”

The ICJP briefing points to such cases as evidence that voluntary guidance does not allow Britain to meet its obligations. Ministers have told British citizens and businesses not to engage in economic activity in settlements, but that advice is not backed by law and carries no penalty for ignoring it. The briefing says this falls well short of the non-assistance and non-recognition duties identified by the ICJ and calls instead for a full legal ban on trade and investment, backed by a tailored sanctions regime under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018.

That call comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reportedly weighing a ban, under pressure from the British pubic and his own MPs, while Israel pushes ahead with its E1 settlement scheme, which threatens to sever the West Bank in two before Israel’s general election on 27 October. The Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, has called the project “an unacceptable and destructive act” and promised “a comprehensive package of measures” — a promise the briefing says will be judged on whether it arrives before bidding on the project closes, eight days before the vote.

The briefing extends the same charge against the UK over UNRWA. It says Britain’s duty, identified by the ICJ, to cooperate in bringing the unlawful situation to an end, requires the UK to press for the repeal of Israeli legislation banning the agency from operating in East Jerusalem, after Israeli forces stormed and took possession of UNRWA’s Kalandia Training Centre in August. It makes the same argument about the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque, which it says has been dismantled “step by deliberate step” since Israeli police authorised organised Jewish prayer inside the compound for the first time. 

On arms, it notes that the government has already made its own finding of a “clear risk” that certain military exports could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of humanitarian law in Gaza, yet continues to licence exports, including components linked to the F-35 jets Israel has used to devastating effect over Gaza, Iran and Lebanon. Non-assistance, the briefing argues, is not a principle the government can apply selectively.

The briefing’s sixth priority area turns to the more than 2,000 Britons — 2,069, according to a freedom of information request to the Israeli army — reported to have served in the Israeli military since October 2023, and to the accountability gap this expose. 

READ: ICJP asks UK for clarification on Britons going to fight in Israel

ICJP notes that Britain’s recognition of the State of Palestine in September 2025 removed the legal excuse ministers had previously used to argue that the nineteenth-century Foreign Enlistment Act did not apply, yet the government still issues no warning to Britons serving in Israel’s army comparable to the one given to those fighting in Ukraine. 

That advice, published by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, tells British nationals that travelling to fight, or to assist others engaged in the war, may amount to an offence under UK legislation and could lead to prosecution on their return.

The demand for accountability related to British nationals participating in the Gaza genocide builds on a wider campaign ICJP has been running alongside Declassified UK since spring. “It’s possible that British people are taking part in a genocide and returning home to live, work and socialise amongst us,” ICJP’s Jonathan Purcell warned in May, as the two organisations launched a petition calling for returning IDF veterans to be investigated. 

Declassified UK’s co-director, Laura Pidcock, called the lack of scrutiny “staggering”. By July, the campaign had gathered almost 25,000 signatures, when ICJP and Declassified UK formally wrote to the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, demanding an investigation. “This petition demonstrates the growing public demand for accountability,” said ICJP’s Beckie Walker. “Tens of thousands of people across the UK have joined this campaign because they believe no individual should be above the law.” 

The final demand of the briefing concerns Palestinians in the West Bank, who it says currently have “no protection” from the very power the law obliges to protect them. It urges the UK to use its seat on the UN Security Council to table a resolution establishing an international protective presence there.

Across all six areas, the briefing’s authors argue, the pattern is the same: a government that states the correct legal position in public while its money, its exports and its own citizens continue to sustain the illegal situation the law requires it to end.

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