At the end of World War II, Church House in Westminster, London, was the site of a War Crimes Commission set up by the United Nations. In the heart of the British capital, Allied diplomats identified, classified, and assisted national governments with the trials of war criminals accused of the most heinous atrocities. Months later, the UN Preparatory Commission met in the same halls as it sought to develop an international legal architecture that would save succeeding generations from similar barbarism.
Eighty years later, on September 4 and 5, the building was again the site of a different war crimes investigation. With the credibility of the postwar settlement conceived in its environs now in tatters, Church House hosted the Gaza Tribunal.
Hosted by the independent member of parliament Jeremy Corbyn — alongside international law experts Dr Shahd Hammouri and Professor Neve Gordon — the tribunal sought to examine Britain’s role in the Gaza genocide. Over the two days of hearings, more than thirty witnesses testified before the panel. Cumulatively, the remarks of lawyers, doctors, journalists, and academics established that the British state is not simply complicit in Israel’s crimes but an active participant.
“Shifa Hospital was not just bombed,” Dr Nick Maynard told the tribunal. “The Israeli military dismantled the whole infrastructure of the hospital.” Maynard, an Oxford University surgeon who has worked in Gaza since 2010, recalled how soldiers ransacked the building: cables to ultrasound machines were cut, dialysis machines…
Auteur: Coll McCail
