Israeli army colonel Elad Edri (circled) graduates from the Royal College of Defence Studies at a ceremony in Chelsea, July 2025. (Photo: RCDS)
After months of secrecy from Labour, we expose where Israeli troops have trained in Britain during the Gaza genocide.
Israeli army officers have been allowed to study at a British military academy in central London throughout the Gaza genocide, Declassified can reveal.
At least two Israeli colonels have attended the prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) since 2023.
One of the soldiers, thought to be Elad Edri, only graduated a fortnight ago.
Another officer, Yeftah Norkin, completed the course in July 2024 and almost immediately led the army’s “Bang” division in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
Norkin, who comes from an influential military family, commanded a patrol company in Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s 2008-9 war in Gaza which killed hundreds of children.
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While Sandhurst teaches junior army officers, the RCDS mentors mid-ranking troops who have ambitions to climb the chain of command, awarding them a post-graduate certificate in international security studies.
The college describes itself as “a world-renowned institution committed to developing strategic thinkers… who have the potential to reach the highest ranks”.
RCDS alumni include Major General Hidai Zilberman, the former IDF spokesperson and now Israeli defence attaché to the US, and General Harel Knfao, who served as Chief of Staff of Israel’s Southern Command.
The Royal College of Defence Studies on Belgrave Square, London. (Photo: Simon Turner / Alamy)
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Palestine Action ‘supporters’ wait to be arrested under the Terrorism Act. (Photo: James Manning / Alamy)
[Declassified] Exclusive: Documents seen by Declassified reveal serious concerns within the UK government and MI5 about proscribing Palestine Action.
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Declassified has now seen documents which detail why, how, and when the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was made. They form part of the material relied upon in the group’s High Court challenge to the ban.
‘Novel and unprecedented’
The documents detail how the government’s Proscription Review Group (PRG) conceded in March 2025 that a ban on Palestine Action would be “novel and unprecedented”.
This was because “there was no known precedent of an organisation being proscribed… mainly due to its use or threat of action involving serious damage to property”.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which is based within MI5, also concluded that “the majority of direct action by Palestine Action would not be classified as terrorism… but does often involve criminality”.
Cooper was nonetheless advised in March by PRG and JTAC that the threshold to ban the group had been met based on three out of a total of 385 incidents, involving “serious property damage” to arms factories.
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The documents also indicate how national security concerns were not a central factor in the Home Office’s decision to proscribe. Indeed, they barely feature in the government’s open evidence.
Ammori’s lawyers argued in court that “no national security justification for the proscription” was articulated by the Home Office, such that Cooper “did not take into account any weighty national security consideration requiring immediate proscription”.
This appears to run contrary to Cooper’s statement to parliament on 23 June, in which she declared: “The UK’s defence enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this Government will not tolerate those who put that security at risk”.
People walk down a street surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip, July 29, 2025
ISRAELI ministers have again exposed how hollow are Western claims to back a two-state solution.
Yet global opinion on Israel’s colonial project has reached a tipping point — and the prospect of real change cannot be dismissed.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir leads settlers in a march through occupied East Jerusalem. En route, he calls for Israel to annex Gaza.
Defence Minister Israel Katz decrees: “We will strengthen our hold and sovereignty over Jerusalem, at the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount, forever.”
These are not aberrations: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he will never tolerate a Palestinian state.
Faced with such extremism, any government serious about a Palestinian state would need to impose tough conditions on Israel: full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza included.
Yet what conditions do they seek to apply?
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain will recognise Palestine unless Israel “takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza.”
Feeble as that is, at least Starmer makes demands of the aggressor, Israel.
Canada’s Mark Carney decided to lecture the people being massacred. Canada would recognise Palestine — subject to democratic reforms, including elections in which (very democratically) Hamas would be banned.
France’s Emmanuel Macron repeated that an independent Palestine would need to be demilitarised — as if Palestine threatens the existence of Israel, rather than the other way around.
The coloniser’s mindset. Palestine can be “independent,” but only if it chooses leaders we like, and has no means of defending itself.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
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Mr Graham Blewitt who was a former prosecutor for the International War Crimes Tribunal in Sydney on 4 December 2005. [Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images]
A former deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said the amount of evidence pointing to genocide in Gaza is overwhelming and likened the situation to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Anadolu reports.
Graham Blewitt, who helped prosecute war crimes in the Balkans and Nazi crimes in Australia, said in a recent interview with Australian broadcaster SBS News that if he were working in the International Criminal Court today, he would have “no hesitation in bringing an indictment against the Israeli leaders for genocide.”
Blewitt said the mass killings in Srebrenica, where over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered and buried in 570 sites — including 77 mass graves — was once deemed a “clear-cut genocide” due to the perpetrators’ intent to destroy a targeted group in whole or in part.
He said the same standard may apply to Gaza.
“There’s no direct evidence apart from comments made by various Israeli leaders from time to time suggesting that they just want to wipe the Palestinians from the face of the Earth,” he said.
Blewitt added that the Israeli air campaign has shown a disturbing lack of proportionality.
“They’ll bomb a building and say they’re after a particular Hamas leader and not worry about the 30, 40, 50, 100 people in close proximity who are killed or injured as a result of that strike,” he said.
Unlike in the 1990s, today’s digital age has created a vast archive of visual documentation.
“Now anyone with a phone can record what’s happening, and there’s no end of evidence for those investigating what’s happening in Gaza,” he said.
However, he also warned that investigators currently lack access to Gaza to collect physical evidence or inspect crime scenes on the ground.
– Interference with justice
Blewitt also raised concerns over global political efforts to shield Israeli leaders from prosecution. He criticized US President Donald Trump’s February executive order that sanctioned ICC staff after the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He described it as “an appalling situation” that undermines international justice and could lead some political leaders to be held in contempt.
Blewitt said the situation has left him deeply frustrated.
“I used to be quite optimistic about the capacity of international institutions to hold war criminals accountable,” he said. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
His remarks come as the International Court of Justice continues to examine a case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The case has placed Israel’s conduct under intensifying legal scrutiny.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Members of the Palestine Red Crescent and other emergency services pray by the bodies of fellow rescuers killed a week earlier by Israeli forces, during a funeral procession at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31, 2025. [Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images]
An Israeli airstrike targeted the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in southern Gaza early Sunday, killing a staff member and injuring two others, the organization said, Anadolu reports.
Red Crescent said Israeli fighter jets hit the first floor of its building in the city of Khan Younis, setting it on fire and causing significant damage.
“Our headquarters’ location is well known to the occupying forces and clearly marked with the protective red emblem. This was not a mistake,” the organization said. “This deliberate attack on a protected Red Crescent facility is a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law — it is a war crime.”
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa earlier reported that a staff member was killed and three others were injured in the attack.
The society renewed its call for “accountability and for the protection of all humanitarian and medical personnel.”
The attack came after US envoy Steve Witkoff visited Gaza on Saturday to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory, where deaths by hunger and starvation have climbed in recent days.
“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” said to Qu Dongyu, head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal war on Gaza, killing more than 60,400 Palestinians since October 2023.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
People walk down a street surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip, July 29, 2025
