Labour rejects Hind Rajab Foundation war crimes complaint against Herzog

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) has reported that the Starmer regime rejected, out of hand and with no legal basis for doing so and in complete violation of its obligations under international law, HRF’s war crimes complaint against Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who has been welcomed and entertained by the UK government this week. The foundation is named after 5 year old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child that Israeli forces fired 355 machine gun bullets into.

Rebuke for government

Responding to Starmer’s government, HRF explained:

On 10 September 2025 the HRF, represented by their UK solicitors, the European Legal Support Center (ELSC, @elsclegal) and Stop the War Coalition (@stwuk), both represented by the Public Interest Law Centre, filed a criminal complaint to the relevant UK authorities seeking the arrest of Israeli President Isaac Herzog for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

The HRF, ELSC and Stop the War Coalition had already taken the preliminary step of writing to the Police, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Attorney General’s Office on 9 September 2025. So far British authorities have refused to act, using weak arguments. More steps will be taken.

The UK has a binding obligation under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to “seek out and prosecute” those reasonably suspected of grave breaches when present in its territory. To refuse action against Herzog while citing dubious evidential grounds, without offering the required guidance, is not only a legal error by the CPS but is both shocking and dangerous, sending a message of impunity at a time when accountability is urgently needed.

The organisation said that it and its co-complainants had provided:

a Case Summary providing clear and detailed evidence of Herzog’s personal role (i.e. as an accessory to war crimes) in Israel’s policy of starvation, the systematic destruction of Gaza, and other acts that may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, on 1 O September 2025…

[including] Herzog’s own public statements erasing civilian protection, his denial of famine in Gaza in the face of overwhelming UN documentation, and his visits to military sites – including Nahal Oz and Gaza – where his presence coincided with or directly preceded destructive military campaigns such as Operation Oz and Nir.

And it detailed the state apparatus’s response, or lack of it:

Despite this compelling material, the Metropolitan Police have failed to arrest Herzog or to indicate any reasons for failing to act, and on the evening of 10 September 2025 a CPS lawyer writing on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions (OPP) rejected the criminal complaint and the separate application for permission to seek a judicial arrest warrant on the grounds of “insufficient admissible evidence”.

HRF chair Dyab Abou Jahjah said:

History will not absolve the British authorities for failing to arrest Isaac Herzog. In doing so, the police have abandoned the Palestinian victims of 𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎, organised starvation, and destruction in 𝙶𝚊𝚣𝚊, and have placed themselves on the side of impunity rather than justice.

Featured image via the Canary