The petition “shows how ongoing Palestinian suffering can be traced directly to Britain’s violations of international law during occupation and withdrawal.”
A group of Palestinians has submitted a legal petition demanding the UK takes responsibility for “its serial international law violations” including war crimes committed during the British occupation of Palestine between 1917 and 1948.
In a press statement, the Britain Owes Palestine campaign said that a 400-page legal document, drafted by a team of prominent lawyers and regional experts was submitted to the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Defence Secretary John Healey and Attorney General Richard Hermer on Sunday.
The ongoing suffering in Palestine can be directly traced to Britain’s violations of int’l law btw 1917 & 1948. We need your support in urging the British gov to acknowledge their role, issue an apology, & provide reparations to the Palestinian ppl. https://t.co/WnCNtLthgx pic.twitter.com/zKMv59MCjA
— Ahmed Eldin | احمد الدين (@ASE) September 7, 2025
The petition records “incontrovertible evidence” that Britain breached international law standards applicable at the time, the statement noted.
“It details Britain’s ‘unlawful’ legacy including the Balfour Declaration in 1917, acting as an occupying power during its self-granted ‘Mandate’ – an authority to rule the territory that had no legal basis – and subsequent systematic abuse of the Palestinian people,” it added.
The petition also “shows how ongoing Palestinian suffering can be traced directly to Britain’s violations of international law during occupation and withdrawal,” the statement added, noting that “the Government is obliged to respond or could find itself brought before the courts in judicial review proceedings.”
Lead Petitioner
The lead petitioner is 91-year-old philanthropist Munib Al Masri, who was born in the town of Nablus in 1934, currently located in the occupied West Bank. Al Masri, who was shot in the leg by British soldiers at the age of 13, recounted in a written statement accompanying the petition, how British troops rounded up large numbers of men. The men were then escorted through towns with their hands and feet bound with rope, and later held in cages prior to execution.
“The current crisis in Palestine was ‘Made in Britain’, through a catalogue of systemic violations and abuse of the Palestinian people. Together we have suffered more than a century of oppression,” Al Masri stated.
“Palestinians to ask UK to own up to ‘law violations’ between 1917 and 1948. Petition, drafted by human rights lawyers, says war crimes were committed during British occupation of Palestine”https://t.co/6roT3Nu5tn
— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) September 8, 2025
Al Masri said the British government must, amongst other requests, acknowledge “the wrongful acts committed in the period covered by the petition and promote a national understanding of the adverse consequences of this part of UK history” as well as “provide an official public apology for the wrongful acts in the form of a statement to be read in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister.”
He emphasized that “Britain can only play its part in building a just peace in the region today if it acknowledges its defining role in the horrors of the past. An apology would be a just start to what Palestinians expect from the British government.”
‘Three Sets of Legal Wrongs’
The petition laid out “three sets of legal wrongs,” according to the statement, including that “Britain breached international law as an occupying power.”
It did this by: (a) unlawfully failing to recognise an Arab nation in Palestine as it pledged to do in the Husayn-McMahon Agreement in 1915; (b) acting unlawfully as an occupying power of Ottoman Palestine from 1917 to 1924 by transforming the political, social and demographic life of the country in accordance with the Balfour Declaration but without the sovereign title to do so; (c) creating a Mandate for itself without legal authority and in breach of the Covenant of the League of Nations; and then (d) having failed to agree a peace treaty with Turkey that transferred sovereign title over Palestine to Britain, continuing to act unlawfully as an occupying power from 1924 to 1948.
An important initiative demanding historical justice for Palestinians from Britain. Everyone with British connections should sign up and spread the word. https://t.co/ErrEyLSU9e
— Martin Shaw (@martinshawx) September 8, 2025
Secondly, Britain “unlawfully repressed the population of Palestine particularly during the suppression of the Arab Rebellion of 1936-1939.
Thirdly, the petition noted that “Britain bears primary responsibility for the abandonment and breaking up of the single unitary territory of Palestine that it occupied in 1917, having encouraged partition as a solution to irreconcilable divisions it had itself nurtured.”
The petition also highlighted that “Through its occupation and repression of Palestine over thirty years, Britain unlawfully furthered the aims of Zionist colonisation and trained and supplied its military forces thereby simultaneously frustrating Palestinian Arab self-government, resistance and security.”
It added: “Partition, as proposed by the United Nations in November 1947 was an avoidable, and soon to be catastrophically ill-fated, ‘solution’ to a ‘problem’ that Britain had created in a Palestine that it no longer wanted to govern.”
Team of Historians
The evidence “has been gathered and independently analysed against contemporary legal standards” by a team of historians, legal historians and international lawyers including Professors John Quigley and Avi Shlaim, Dr Victor Kattan, and barristers Ben Emmerson KC and Danny Friedman KC.
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“This petition demonstrates, by reference to a comprehensive analysis of contemporary evidence, the extent of British responsibility for the terrible suffering in Palestine, which can be traced back to Britain’s violations of international law during its occupation and subsequent withdrawal,” International human rights lawyer and former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson KC, said in the press statement.
“These historic injustices continue to shape the realities on the ground today. Britain owes a debt to the Palestinian people. Today’s petition is based upon the international obligations of the United Kingdom to make amends,” Emmerson added.
Other Petitioners
Other petitioners include Imad Fayeq Shareef Abukishek whose family originates from the village of Arab Abu Kishk, located north of Jaffa which is now in Israel.
They were well known for cultivating and exporting citrus fruits to Europe. His family was forcibly displaced and barred from returning to their lands. Their properties were classified as ‘state-owned’ by the newly-formed Israeli government in 1948.
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Another petitioner is Jehad Izzat Yacoub Issa who also grew up in the Balata Refugee Camp following his parents’ expulsion from their village of Tireh Dandan in the Al-Lydd – now Lod – district after Zionist militias took over the land in July 1948. The family left behind land, houses, livestock, and businesses and have been unable to return.
Mohammad Saeed Barakeh, is also a petitioner, whose family came from Saffuriyya, in Nazareth, which was destroyed in 1948 after Britain’s withdrawal. Barakeh’s father witnessed British forces arbitrarily killing villagers, including disabled men and burning homes. His family were displaced during the Nakba, after a Haganah campaign that included bombing the village, according to the press statement.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
The fraudulent creation of the state of Israel lies at the very heart of all the oppression and
bloodshed inflicted on Palestinians. The mere passing of time cannot add any legitimacy to some spurious ‘mandate’ created as a sop to over-influential Zionists in the wake of the Holocaust. What was created was a monster posing as a beacon of ‘civilisation’ in the Middle East and fooling the rest of the world into believing it. The ‘Frankenstein’ in its creation was, and continues to be, the USA which, like Israel, was itself created by settlers and colonisers at the catastrophic cost to the indigenous population. No wonder the monster is allowed to pursue its Nazi-inspired ‘Final Solution’!
Yes, good.
of course, in all fairness, the Balfour Declaration did state that the Jews would be co-existing on land that is already owned, don’t take over, share the space you’re being inserted into.
They just want it all for themselves obviously. It would have been better if there never was an ” Israel ” , and…there never really was one, it’s always been Palestine. The Israelis are squatting, something they’ve done for centuries all over the world. No one likes them, no one wants them…
gee, i wonder whyyy???