The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) strongly condemns and firmly rejects the United Kingdom’s decision to host Israeli President Isaac Herzog in London, at a time when the Israeli military continues to commit the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, carries out ongoing aggression in the West Bank, and even attacks neighbouring Arab states as part of a systematic pattern of crimes and violations. Such a reception provides political and diplomatic cover for documented war crimes and crimes against humanity, while at the same time granting legitimacy to a policy of extermination that has been explicitly warned against by the highest international judicial bodies.

As a State Party to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the United Kingdom bears an unequivocal legal and moral obligation to prevent genocide and to prosecute its perpetrators. Rather than fulfilling these obligations and exercising universal jurisdiction to arrest those implicated upon their arrival in its territory, the British government has chosen to host them, thereby conferring political cover and directly undermining its own international credibility and the very principles of justice it professes to uphold.

The PRC calls on the British government to immediately cease receiving Israeli officials, to impose a comprehensive embargo on all arms and military technology exports to Israel, and to terminate all forms of security and intelligence cooperation with it. The PRC further urges the UK Parliament to hold the government accountable for this grave breach of Britain’s international obligations, and to ensure that national policy is brought into full compliance with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice, which has affirmed the real and imminent risk of genocide being committed in Gaza.

Continuing to host alleged war criminals and to provide Israel with political and military support does not merely render Britain an unfit and partial actor; it makes it a complicit partner in the crime, and gravely undermines its standing on the international stage. Moreover, collusion with Israel at a time when it is brazenly violating the sovereignty of multiple Arab states in the region further encourages aggression and threatens regional peace and stability.

Finally, the PRC calls for a broad-based legal and human rights mobilisation at the organisational level, and urges grassroots party members in the United Kingdom to assume their responsibility in holding their leaders and representatives accountable for their silence or complicity in this crime. Only such combined institutional and popular pressure can compel genuine compliance with international law and close the door to impunity.