Occupied Palestinian Territories: Genocide Risk Assessment

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara) for getting this debate and to all those who have spoken in it. We are having this debate against a background where 71,000 people are known to be dead in Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardment, with many thousands of bodies lying under rubble that will no doubt become the foundations of the casinos and hotels that the Trump plan is visiting on the people of Gaza.

I had the privilege of attending the South African application under the genocide convention at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It was a deeply moving experience hearing the South African application and the bravery with which they put it and thinking, “This is the country that threw off the yoke of apartheid and had the courage then to stand up for the Palestinian people, facing genocide as they are.” The conclusion by the eminent judges was that there was a credible case that genocide had been committed, and they are going through many details on it.

Following that, last year I introduced a ten-minute Bill in the Chamber calling for this country to set up its own tribunal of investigation on its participation in arms sales to Israel and the bombardment of Gaza. Unsurprisingly, it was blocked. Through the Peace & Justice Project, I then established our own independent Gaza tribunal, which we held over two days in Church House Westminster. I was joined by Shahd Hammouri and Neve Gordon, who assessed a great deal of detailed evidence.

In the one minute and 15 seconds left to me, I cannot go through that evidence, but I will simply say this. There was powerful evidence of doctors in tears because they did not have the equipment to deal with the horrendous injuries that they were asked to deal with in hospitals without electricity, anaesthetic, antiseptic or even clean water. The legal evidence given and the evidence given by former Foreign and Commonwealth Office official Mark Smith was very powerful, as was the evidence about the supply of weapons to Israel through RAF Akrotiri. The matter has now been taken up by a group of UN member states in the Hague convention, who will carry on with it.

Let me conclude with this. As was pointed out earlier, this country was involved in supporting and establishing in the 1920s the International Court of Justice. We pride ourselves on being the custodians of international law and order. This country is making itself complicit in the genocide of the people of Palestine by its supply of weapons. It is time to stop.