Over 2,000 Britons served in IDF as 47,000 dual and multi-nationals enlisted during Gaza genocide
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More than 2,000 British nationals served in the Israeli military during its genocide in Gaza, according to new data published by Declassified UK.
The investigative outlet reported that figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request submitted to the Israeli army show that 1,686 British-Israeli dual nationals and a further 383 individuals holding British, Israeli and at least one additional nationality were serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as of March 2025. The combined total stands at 2,069 UK nationals.
The British contingent forms part of a much larger group of foreign nationals serving in the Israeli military. The data indicates that 43,194 dual nationals and 3,913 multi-nationals were enlisted in the IDF, amounting to 47,107 soldiers holding Israeli citizenship alongside at least one other nationality.
The largest cohort comes from the US, with 12,135 US-Israeli dual nationals and 1,207 US multi-nationals — a total of 13,342 Americans. France follows with 6,127 dual nationals and 337 multi-nationals. Significant numbers were also recorded from Russia (5,067), Germany (3,901), Ukraine (3,210), Romania (1,675) and Poland (1,668).
The findings have prompted renewed calls for the UK authorities to examine whether British nationals serving in the IDF were involved in violations of international law during Israel’s military campaign assault in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and is the subject of proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide.
READ: MEMO Interviews: Will Brits fighting for Israel be charged with war crimes?
Last year, a 240-page dossier naming ten British nationals was submitted to the Metropolitan Police’s war crimes unit by the Public Interest Law Centre and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The complaint alleged involvement in the targeted killing of civilians and aid workers, as well as indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas.
Human rights barrister Michael Mansfield said at the time that “no one is above the law”, while solicitor Paul Heron stressed that where credible evidence exists linking British nationals to grave breaches of international law, authorities have a duty to investigate.
The UK Foreign Office declined to comment on the data, according to Declassified, and confirmed it does not collect information on the number of Britons serving in the IDF.
The publication of the figures also raises wider legal questions. In January 2024, the ICJ stated that there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and reminded states of their obligation to prevent such crimes. In July 2024, the court further advised that UN member states must refrain from assisting Israel in maintaining its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory.
Legal observers have also pointed to the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, which prohibits British citizens from fighting for a foreign state at war with another state with which the UK is at peace. Campaigners argue that the scale of British participation revealed in the data warrants urgent legal scrutiny.
READ: UK police looking into foreign fighters’ war crimes with Israeli forces in Gaza
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
