Occupied Palestinian Territories: Genocide Risk Assessment

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O’Hara) for securing today’s debate. In June last year, I secured a debate in Westminster Hall on the same topic, and the arguments that I set out at length then still hold; indeed, they have been deepened and strengthened by events since. The Green party has long been clear that the actions of the Israeli Government in Gaza constitute genocide, but I agree with the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) that it is important to be clear about language, so I will make very specific arguments with respect to the genocide convention.

Under the convention, the UK has a legal obligation to assess the risk of genocide, and to act to prevent it when that risk is clear. Article I specifies that the contracting parties undertake

“to prevent and to punish”

genocide. By definition, prevention has to happen before an event has happened, or before it is completed; it cannot wait for a court case after genocide has conclusively taken place. Does the Minister therefore accept that the UK has a duty under article I of the genocide convention to prevent genocide when a serious risk is identified?

Article II sets out a range of acts that, if

“committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”

a specific group, constitute genocide. Five acts are specified; only one of them needs to be occurring for it to be concluded that genocide is taking place, and there is very widespread agreement that at least four of those acts are happening in Gaza. They include

“Killing members of the group…Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”

and

“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

What else is cutting off water and preventing the delivery of food, lifesaving medicines, fuel and power? The fourth is

“Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.

The wholesale destruction of healthcare in Gaza is clear evidence that this is occurring.

It is not just me or the International Court of Justice who says that; the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty, B’Tselem, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, the UN commission of inquiry and hundreds of British lawyers say it, as we have heard. Why does the Minister not accept the conclusion of that wide swathe of people that genocide is indeed taking place, or at least that there is a plausible risk, which therefore entails his obligations under article 1?

Article III(e) of the genocide convention specifies that complicity in genocide is punishable. Let us be clear about UK complicity: we have the export of arms, including F-35s, the sharing of intelligence and continued participation in settlement trade, which is participation in the proceeds of crime—that is, land seizure. What more evidence do the UK Government need that genocide is taking place and that we are complicit in it before they take the long-overdue actions that are in their power?