Liberal Democrats along with the SNP, the Green Party and several Independent MPs have recognised that Israel has committed genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention. So far so good.  

The bad news is that the failure to act by the British and other governments frankly amounts to complicity in war crimes. The UK Government still hasn’t announced how it plans to follow up the 2024 ICJ judgements which warned of the plausible risk of genocide, confirmed that Israeli settlements are illegal and stated that other countries should not have any dealings with those settlements.  

The Trump ‘Peace Plan’ has done nothing to end the occupation, and the Board of Peace includes indicted war criminals Netanyahu and Putin, with not a single Palestinian. (Nor a single woman!). As Kaja Kallas, the EU Foreign Affairs chief, said at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, the Board’s Charter doesn’t even mention Gaza or Palestine and risks undermining the United Nations.

It is 78 years since Israel was created and forcibly displaced over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, systematically murdering many on the way. 78 long years that Palestinians have lived under occupation, displacement, and collective punishment.

In the past 29 months, 72,045 Palestinians have been reported killed in Gaza by Israeli arms. This official toll, which the Israeli military has now endorsed, only includes confirmed direct deaths from bombings and shootings, where bodies have been found. It does not account for indirect deaths, from disease or starvation, for example, or for bodies still under the rubble. Over 500 Gazans have been killed since the so-called ceasefire – many for straying close to the Yellow Line to which Israeli troops have withdrawn but keep arbitrarily moving. 

While the world’s attention has been fixed upon the annihilation in Gaza, settlers in the West Bank have intensified their campaign of ethnic cleansing, aided and abetted by government ministers and the IDF. As of 5 February 2026, according to the UN, 1054 West Bank Palestinians had been killed since October 2023, a fifth of them children. Many more have been driven from their homes by relentless harassment and the destruction of properties, with entire Palestinian communities erased.  This violence has further eroded the already fragile Palestinian economy.  

Israel has now stepped up this de facto annexation of the West Bank by making it easier for settlers to take over Palestinian land. Announcing the move, Finance Minister Smotrich said “We will continue to kill the idea of ​​a Palestinian state”. The move has been condemned by many governments, including our own, but no new sanctions have been announced. Smotrich is not just an individual speaking out of turn. He represents the Government of the State of Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to detain more than 9000 Palestinians without a fair (or any) trial, including approximately 300 children and over 80 health workers. There are widespread reports by Israeli and international human rights organisations of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees.

The Lib Dems in Parliament continue to take a much firmer moral stance than the UK Government on what should happen next. The pathetic, weekly hand-wringing from Hamish Falconer, the Minister for the Middle East, needs to be challenged. The Government needs to publish its long overdue response to the ICJ ruling and agree with Wes Streeting’s recent admission that international law is being broken and that war crimes have been committed. Israel is not going to stop its relentless murdering of civilians, nor the West Bank annexation, nor accept a two-state solution unless Western governments step up their pressure for change.  Our problem is that voters are not hearing the Lib Dems outside Parliament.  They are only hearing the Greens across the UK and the SNP in Scotland. 

It would be good to see our MPs working with other parties and using every opportunity (including, where possible, by forcing a vote) to put the utmost pressure on the Government to take decisive action. This must include supporting Arab diplomacy and the closely-aligned New York Declaration, a multi-lateral plan endorsed by allies including the EU and Canada, which provides a strong alternative to Trump’s ‘Peace Plan’. We must also keep demanding a complete and immediate ban on trade with Israeli settlements (Party policy since 2021).

There are a range of other steps the Government could also be urged to take – all of which follow naturally from our respect for international law:

• Sanction any representatives or employees of the Government of Israel (in their official capacities) supporting or enacting serious violations of international law. 
• Immediately suspend the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement and cease all military cooperation with Israel until it brings itself in line with international law.
•  Empower the British police to investigate, arrest and prosecute British or dual national citizens suspected of complicity in war crimes perpetuated by Israel.
• Suspend the discriminatory visa system that allows Israel citizens visa free travel to the UK without extending the same privilege to Palestinians, until Palestinians and Israelis can receive equal treatment, and Israel allows free travel to and from the occupied territories for Palestinians.

Taking serious steps like these should send shock waves through Israeli society, putting extremists on notice. It will also empower brave Israeli politicians and human rights activists to stand up to their government from a much stronger position, especially as they approach Israel’s upcoming General Election.

* John Kelly is the Secretary of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine and a member of the West Midlands Liberal Democrat Regional Executive Committee.