SINCE the Netanyahu government engineered the collapse of the ceasefire, Israel’s crimes in Gaza have escalated horrifically, killing 400 people in one night and more than 100 children a day on average since last month.

Israel has been exposed executing paramedics and rescue workers and hiding their bodies and vehicles and has killed more journalists during the genocide than died during the US civil war, both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Russia combined.

And just this past weekend, we saw horrific scenes of headless and limbless children after Israel bombed al-Nakhil Street, Gaza, with many more wounded and unlikely to survive given the absence of antibiotics, anaesthetics and clean dressings.

Those who escape the bombs, missiles and bullets are being systematically starved by Israel’s complete blockade of food, medicine and fuel and by its bombing of water desalination plants. Palestinians are again being shunted around between “safe” zones where they are still bombed and starved.

Yet Israel continues to enjoy impunity from Western governments. Hungary has left the International Criminal Court (ICC) to allow Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Budapest without fear of arrest under the warrant issued by the ICC.

France, Germany and Italy have said they will not fulfil their obligations as signatories to the ICC by arresting them if they have the opportunity and yesterday France allowed Netanyahu to cross French air space on his flight from Hungary to the US for another meeting with Donald Trump. The British government has been more vague, refusing to say it will arrest Netanyahu if it has an opportunity to do so, instead prevaricating that there may be legal reasons preventing it.

At least in Britain, however, there is the prospect that some of Israel’s impunity may erode, after a team of lawyers in Britain and researchers in The Hague announced this week that they have compiled a report for submission to the War Crimes Team at the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command (SO15). The submission is on behalf of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and the British-based Public Interest Law Centre, which is representing Palestinians in Gaza and Britain.

The report is the first of its kind, with its compilers saying it gives detailed, fully researched and compelling evidence of the involvement of British nationals in grave crimes committed in Gaza and identifying 10 British suspects, with a dossier of evidence of their involvement in the Israeli military’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. It calls for an immediate investigation into the British suspects and for the issuing of arrest warrants and prosecutions in British courts.

The alleged crimes, committed across the Gaza Strip by British citizens serving as part of Israeli military units, include the targeted killing of civilians and aid workers, including by sniper fire; indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, including hospitals; forced transfer and displacement of civilians; and co-ordinated attacks on protected sites, including historic monuments and religious sites.

Witnesses in Gaza have testified to “dead bodies scattered next to each other” in the aftermath of attacks involving British citizens in these military units and to finding whole families among the strewn refugee dead. Others recount even elderly people and children being forced to strip before being beaten and tortured, and finding pits used as dumping grounds for those killed, with others crushed after being run over by tanks or bulldozers that then demolished hospital buildings.

The report details how each of the crimes attributed to the 10 suspects amounts to a war crime or crime against humanity — “core international crimes” under international law, some of the gravest it is possible to commit, including murder, torture, pillage and intentionally directing attacks against civilians, aid and medical workers, religious and educational buildings and hospitals, as well as the use of chemical weapons, cluster munitions and other weapons not authorised by international conventions.

The group is submitting the dossier to SO15 because, through international treaties, Britain has an obligation to investigate and prosecute those who have committed core international crimes under the principle of “universal jurisdiction.” This obligation is codified in British law through Section 51 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (ICCA), which states that it “is an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to commit genocide, a crime against humanity, or a war crime,” even if it takes place outside British territory.

Also in British law, the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 (GCA) gives effect to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and criminalises “grave breaches” of the treaties. The grave breach regime applies to conduct that takes place in the context of an international armed conflict and applies to any person, whatever their nationality, who in the context of an international armed conflict, whether inside or outside England and Wales, “commits, aids, abets, or procures the commission by any other person of a grave breach.”

The GCA and ICCA apply to British nationals suspected of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report provides substantial evidence for the War Crimes Team to initiate an investigation into the ten named suspects under these provisions.

The legal group has already met with SO15 representatives and is handing over its full report, including details of crimes, crime sites, military units and specific acts by British citizens, this week. SO15 is legally obliged to take on and advance the investigation, which is clearly proportionate, feasible and required — and which should, given the amount of evidence, lead to prosecutions.

However, given the Starmer government’s failure to condemn, often even to mention, the most appalling atrocities of the genocide, its refusal to commit to arresting Netanyahu despite the ICC’s arrest warrant for him and Britain’s obligations to carry it out, and its proven willingness to make special arrangements to allow senior Israeli military officials to visit Britain with impunity, there are serious concerns that the government will subvert, block or simply ignore the dossier and its detailed allegations in the hope they will be forgotten.

These concerns are even more profound given the government’s crackdown on students and young people trying to organise peaceful resistance to the genocide and to Britain’s support for Israel, and the willingness of police to act as agents of this repression.

While the government talked of new laws to “protect” places of worship that might object to anti-genocide marches and rallies, 30 police officers stormed a Quaker house of worship, breaking down its door, to arrest young people listening to a Youth Demand welcome talk and then raided their parents’ homes while they were detained, to seize electronic devices.

The new dossier and the legal obligation of the British state to properly investigate the alleged war crimes of British citizens presents, at last, the prospect of an end to the complete impunity of Israel and its supporters for the worst crimes of this century.

Such action will send a message that will put political pressure on other governments to act legally and morally and take similar actions against their own people who participate in atrocities. But only if it actually happens. Given the British Establishment’s evident readiness to attack the rights of British people while protecting Israel from the consequences of its actions, we cannot assume that laws and due process will be followed.

In protest and in every other available way, opponents of genocide must pressure the government, demand action and refuse to allow the government to sabotage the investigation or kick it into the long grass until it is forgotten. The time to act is now.

Claudia Webbe was the member of Parliament for Leicester East (2019-24). You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe.