London, United Kingdom – For Nick Maynard, a British doctor who has volunteered in Gaza several times, the United Kingdom’s “silence in action” is a form of the government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
As a wave of early autumn rain poured over London on Thursday, he painted a harrowing picture of the injuries he witnessed Israel inflict on children, through aerial bombardment or gunfire, or by the deliberate restriction of life-saving infant formula and medicine.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Boys he operated on, some as young as 11 or 12, “had been clearly targeted with shootings to the abdomen and the chest”, he told Al Jazeera, on the sidelines of an unofficial inquiry examining the UK’s alleged role in Israeli war crimes.
On one occasion at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, as Maynard operated on a patient in an ill-equipped theatre to the cacophony of bombs exploding, a group of four young teenagers, aged between 13 and 14, were brought in, “all shot in the testicles”.
“The pattern of the targeting of specific body parts was something we all recognised,” he said, “explained by what I describe as target practice by the Israeli soldiers.”
He also remembered seven-month-old Zaynab, who died of malnutrition. “You could see every rib, every bone in her body,” he told the room. “She was being fed with water mixed with sugar. We had completely run out of formula feed in Nasser [hospital].
“Four days before she died, US doctors had brought in formula feed, knowing there was a shortage. They had those removed, deliberately, by Israeli guards. That formula feed may have saved Zaynab.”
More than 64,000 people have been killed in Gaza by Israel since it launched its war on the besieged enclave in October 2023, following the Hamas attacks on southern Israel, during which an estimated 1,200 people were killed.
The so-called Gaza tribunal, a two-day event which concludes on Friday, is being hosted by Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and lifelong supporter of Palestinian rights, who is launching a new left-wing party in the UK.
Mark Smith, a former diplomat who resigned over the UK’s failure to stop sending arms to Israel, will address the tribunal on Friday.
‘Complicit in breaches of international humanitarian law’
United Nations specialists, Palestinian journalists who have survived the genocide, lawmakers and campaigners are also among those contributing to Corbyn’s effort, which comes in the wake of a clash with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government.
On June 4, Corbyn tabled a bill in the House of Commons calling for an independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza, including the supply of weapons, surveillance aircraft and the use of Royal Air Force bases. That bill, backed by dozens of MPs and supported by more than 20 aid groups, was ultimately blocked by the ruling Labour Party.
“If the government won’t organise a public open inquiry, if Parliament won’t effectively inquire into what’s going on, it remains for us to do it,” said Corbyn. “This [event] will strengthen our arguments both in Parliament and outside … An awful lot of what’s going on is completely illegal and shouldn’t be hidden from.”
Should the UK continue to supply “vital components” of F-35 jets to Israel, which are “bombing hospitals and schools … then that makes us complicit in breaches of international humanitarian law”.
The majority of panellists at the conference, held in the heart of Westminster – a stone’s throw from 10 Downing Street – agreed that the UK is complicit in Israel’s alleged war crimes, including Labour lawmaker Richard Burgon.
“Some governments, including the UK, are helping to arm Israel,” he said. “That’s one form of complicity.”
Another, he believes, is “political complicity”.
“I would argue that they [the UK government] are also complicit through the political green lights that they give Israel.”
The UK should have used “every single tool at its disposal, from sanctions … to using its role in the UN and elsewhere to force, not plead with Israel, to stop”, just as it has attempted to with Russia’s war on Ukraine, he said.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, stopped short of alleging complicity in war crimes but said states including the UK have “been on notice for decades of their obligations, and they have not acted accordingly” – referring to Israel’s “longstanding structural system of widespread and systemic oppression and exploitation against the Palestinians that has turned genocidal”.
The meetings come amid a surge of public sympathy with the Palestinians. On Saturday, thousands are expected to join pro-Palestine marches across the country.
Ben Jamal, head of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, noted a “fundamental shift in public opinion”.
“Israel is more isolated in the court of public opinion, but none of that has been able to shift the dynamics of government behaviour,” he said.
While the UK has in recent months condemned Israel’s onslaught and is expected to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly later this month, Israel’s prime minister, Isaac Herzog, is scheduled to travel to the UK next week, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
As well as maintaining diplomatic ties, the UK continues to fly surveillance planes over Gaza, raising questions about possible intelligence sharing with Israel, and supplies Israel with F-35 components through the global pool programme.
Hala Sabbah, the Palestinian cofounder of the Sameer Project, a grassroots aid organisation for Gaza, questioned why the UK has welcomed fewer child evacuees in need of urgent medical care than countries such as Italy and Spain.
“Not only is the UK actively killing us, but they refuse to help us,” she said.
Having witnessed the effects of Israel’s campaign, which continues to kill dozens of people per day – often more than 100 – Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has volunteered in Gaza, first wrote to Prime Minister Starmer in November 2024, along with campaigners, urging action.
But it was only after her media appearances in June 2025, when she spoke to various outlets about the effect of malnutrition she had witnessed, that she and other doctors were finally invited to speak with the premier via Zoom. She also met in person with Wes Streeting, the health minister.
Asked at the tribunal whether the meetings had led to any proactive action by the UK government, she responded, “Not that we’ve been informed of, no.”
