A United Nations commission of inquiry has concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council, states there are reasonable grounds to believe that four of the five genocidal acts defined in international law have been carried out since October 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.

The commission cites both the statements of Israeli leaders and the systematic conduct of Israeli forces as evidence of genocidal intent. It makes clear that this is not merely the collateral damage of war, but a pattern of destruction directed at the Palestinian people as such.

The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on 7 October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel responded with overwhelming force. According to Gaza’s health authorities, at least 64,905 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since then. More than 90% of homes are damaged or destroyed. Gaza’s healthcare, water and sanitation systems lie in ruins. A UN-backed panel of food security experts has declared a famine in Gaza City.

The devastation has been unrelenting. The displacement of nearly the entire population, the collapse of civilian infrastructure, and the deliberate withholding of essentials such as food, medicine and fuel all point to a campaign not simply against Hamas but against the very survival of Palestinians in Gaza.

The word genocide, coined by Raphael Lemkin, was given legal form in the 1948 Genocide Convention. It was drafted in the shadow of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany. To see Israel, a state born of that catastrophe, accused by the United Nations of breaching the very convention established to prevent such crimes, is nothing short of seismic.

Israel has denied the charge. It insists its military operations are acts of self-defence aimed at neutralising Hamas and freeing hostages, some of whom remain captive. It has dismissed the report as antisemitic lies orchestrated by Hamas sympathisers. Israel’s ally, the United States, has likewise rejected the findings. Both countries boycott the Human Rights Council, claiming it is biased.

The question now turns to Britain. The United Kingdom is not a bystander in this conflict. It sells arms to Israel, licenses components used in its fighter jets and missiles, provides military training, shares intelligence, and allows British spy planes to conduct surveillance flights over Gaza.

If the UN’s findings are to be taken seriously—and they must be—then Britain cannot claim ignorance. Continued support for Israel’s military campaign, in the face of detailed evidence of genocidal acts, risks making the UK complicit in genocide.

International law is explicit: states have a duty not only to refrain from committing genocide but also to prevent it. The International Court of Justice has already ruled that there is a plausible case of genocide underway in Gaza. For the UK to persist with arms exports and military cooperation is to knowingly aid a state accused of the gravest crime in human history.

For decades, British officials have spoken of a “rules-based international order”. Yet when the rules are most severely broken, Britain chooses expediency over principle. Arms sales trump human rights. Strategic alliances outweigh moral clarity.

But there is no refuge in wilful blindness. When genocide is declared by the United Nations, those who continue to arm, train, and assist the perpetrators share in the burden of responsibility. History’s judgement will be unforgiving.

The Genocide Convention was meant to bind states to a solemn promise: never again.

The question facing Britain is simple: does it honour that promise, or does it abandon it?