Top Gaza lawyer who survived Israeli air strike seeks prosecution of UK citizens
Raji Sourani, founder and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, is widely considered to be one of the world's leading Palestinian lawyers.
In early 2024, he narrowly survived an Israeli air strike in Gaza which blew up his two-storey home. In late February that year, he crossed into Egypt with his family.
Since 2015, Sourani has led the legal team representing Palestinian victims at the International Criminal Court.
And in the past year, he has been working with South Africa's legal team in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Now the lawyer is in Britain with a new aim - seeking the prosecution of 10 British citizens accused of committing war crimes in Gaza with the Israeli military.
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On Monday, Sourani joined a team of legal experts at New Scotland Yard in London in submitting a 240-page report to the Metropolitan Police's war crimes team.
The report was filed on behalf of his organisation, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC).
'We give very serious evidence'
The 10 people accused include Israeli dual nationals. They are suspected of crimes including murder, extermination, attacking civilians and the deportation or forcible transfer of a population.
"We are here for a very special mission," Sourani told Middle East Eye on Monday, "to say to the police that there are British [citizens] who are involved in these crimes - war crimes, persecution, crimes against humanity - in the Gaza Strip, and these people should be held accountable.
A team of legal experts submitted a war crimes complaint to the Metropolitan Police in London on Monday against 10 British nationals accused of committing war crimes for the Israeli military in Gaza pic.twitter.com/FHWKr1s7fo
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 9, 2025
"We give very serious evidence for them. We collected it and we have it."
"We are giving them these files so that they know and they have to proceed," he added.
Sourani said he expects the police to take action: "This is a rule of law country and what we anticipate or expect is that this should work effectively, and hold these suspects accountable."
But he levied heavy criticism against Prime Minister Keir Starmer for having denied that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
In November last year, Starmer - a former human rights lawyer - was asked in parliament to share his definition of genocide and to outline what action he was taking to save the lives of people in Gaza.
In response, he said he was "well aware of the definition of genocide" and that this explained why he had "never described or referred to [the situation in Gaza] as genocide".
His remarks followed similar denials from Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who suggested that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza because millions of people have not been killed.
"I think it's a big shame on the prime minister and prosecutor if they are saying it's not genocide," Sourani told MEE.
"I'm representing the victims. I'm the one who is on the ground and building these files. You don't need to be a first-class lawyer to prove that. The genocide is being broadcast live."
'You cannot be selective'
Sourani sent a message to Starmer: "How many, Mr Prime Minister, do you need of Gaza's children and women to be dead? How many of them do you need to be in famine? How many of them do you need to be displaced and to be kicked out of the Gaza Strip?
"It's a big shame when 18,000 children of Gaza [have been killed] and he doesn't recognise genocide."
'How many, Mr Prime Minister, do you need of Gaza's children and women to be dead?'
- Raja Sourani
Sourani continued: "You didn't prevent it. You covered it up. You gave reasons for it. This is going on livestream, 18 months, and you still don't recognise it. This is a big shame on the British government."
Now, he said, was the time for legal action against individuals responsible for war crimes in Gaza. "You are calling for rule of law, democracy, human rights. You cannot be selective. You cannot politicise this."
The report, which has been prepared by a team of UK lawyers and researchers in The Hague and is based on six months of research, covers alleged offences committed from October 2023 to May last year.
Jake Taylor, a barrister from Doughty Street Chambers, was one of the legal experts behind the report.
"This has been a six-month intensive process, with the team of lawyers working around the clock in order to go through the vast amount of material available," he told MEE.
"Under British law, there is an obligation to investigate British nationals for international crimes if there is significant suspicion. The police will conduct their own investigation.
"The majority of [the report] is open source. We have not done the investigation for the police. We have accumulated all this evidence and passed it on to them, and asked them to investigate themselves."
If the police decide there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute, prosecutions will proceed.
"I think it's about time for the ICC to activate itself again and do something more serious. They do have the chain of command and they do have the evidence. We are sure that they have enough to act," Taylor said.
The Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation has sought to initiate nearly 100 cases against Israeli soldiers in 14 countries with universal jurisdiction: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Thailand.
In January this year, the Israeli military advised dozens of soldiers against travelling abroad after reportedly tracking around 30 war crimes complaints and legal actions targeting its personnel for their roles in operations in Gaza.
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