Occupied Palestinian Territories: Genocide Risk Assessment

Seamus Logan Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara) for securing this important debate, and I highlight that this is only the second time that a Backbench Business debate on Gaza has taken place in this Chamber.

The reaction of the UK Government since they came into office has been, at best, supine, or at worst, grossly negligent. They have responded to UN independent international commissions of inquiry in other contexts, such as Ukraine—and rightly so—but they have failed to do so on Gaza. Back in September 2025, the UN’s “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory” found that Israel had committed a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

On 2 October, as part of the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I voted in favour of a resolution on the “devastating humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Paragraph 8 of the resolution referred to the UN Human Rights Council’s finding that genocide was taking place, which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and it highlighted the obligation of all state parties to prevent genocide under article 1 of the UN convention. Would the hon. Gentleman also welcome a comment from the Minister on the UK’s response to that Assembly resolution?

[Seamus Logan]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady.

In recent days, we have learned that the IDF has admitted its role in the death of at least 70,000 Palestinians. Meanwhile, Secretary-General António Guterres warns us that, as we enter 2026, the clock is ticking louder than ever, with conditions on the ground in Palestine remaining perilously fragile.

Only yesterday, a UN committee mandated to promote the realisation of Palestinian rights reaffirmed calls for a two-state solution, which Secretary-General Guterres endorsed as the only viable path towards achieving long-lasting peace and security between Palestine and Israel. However, in this context, at least another 449 men, women and children have been killed by Israeli forces during the so-called ceasefire.

Why can the UK Government not see what the UN can? Why do they accept the UN’s reports on Ukraine, but not Gaza? Why do they not accept the conclusions of UK-based lawyers, including Supreme Court justices, who signed a letter to the Prime Minister in May last year to confirm that a genocide is being perpetrated?

I wish to turn to the letter that I and 57 other parliamentarians have signed, led by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden), explaining to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade that we are extremely concerned by the Government’s apparent move towards unblocking arms licences to Israel, which they had suspended in September 2024, and the transfer of new F-35s from a British airbase. This is at odds with the Government’s international legal obligations, including the genocide convention. I hope the Minister will be able to explain that decision, given the ongoing violation of the ceasefire by Israeli forces in Gaza, which is continuing the genocidal horror of these past two and a half years.

When talk of peace involves the perpetrators of violence and not the violated—not the voices of those who have lost so much on all sides—war crimes will go unpunished and festering wounds of injustice will lead to further conflict. The Prime Minister, as a former human rights lawyer, must understand that. Why then, given everything that we know, and all that we have witnessed, do his Government remain in a state of ambivalence on assessments of genocide under international law in Palestine? Does the clue to the answer lie in this Government’s protection of trade and diplomatic ties to Israel and the US?