Declassified documents show UK aware of Israeli war crimes for 24 years

UK Foreign Office files, public since 2024, record warnings about Israeli violence and rights abuses since 2002.British diplomats condemned Israeli conduct in the occupied West Bank as a pattern of human rights abuses in 2002 – 24 years before London took a tougher stance towards Israel this week.These decades-old condemnations are contained in UK Foreign Office files written during the administration of former Prime Minister Tony Blair while Israel undertook a brutal 2002 offensive in the occupied West Bank.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3The limits of the UK’s ban on Israeli settlement goodslist 2 of 3How has Israel hit back against sanctions by the UK, others?list 3 of 3As the UK sanctions Israeli settlements, is the two-state solution dead?end of listThe files, released in 2024 and reported in a recent investigation by the website Declassified UK, record British diplomats describing a pattern of abuses by a state their own government would go on to arm for the next two decades.Today, Blair sits on the Board of Peace that presides over Gaza, where Israel’s disregard for Palestinian lives and the rules of war has been demonstrated on a genocidal scale, while the UK’...