Paul Biya, second from right, is re-elected as Cameroon’s president last November (Photo: Angel Ngwe / Alamy
‘D-Notice’ committee secretary privately briefed Australian officials against Declassified
The Ministry of Defence is refusing to apologise for an official describing Declassified as “extreme” in a private briefing given to the Australian Attorney General’s office.
Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds was found to have described Declassified as an “extreme, non-msm [mainstream media]” organisation by The Grayzone, following a Freedom of Information request the media outlet made last year.
Dodds’ depiction of Declassified is contained in notes prepared by him for Australian officials in 2022.
As secretary of the Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee, Dodds was outlining instances in which some UK media organisations have refused to accept the advice of his committee.
Better known as the ‘D-Notice’ committee, the DSMA exists supposedly to prevent media disclosing information that could compromise national security. It operates a purely voluntary system and there are no obligations for journalists to censor material after receiving a request from it.
In February 2022, Declassified refused to comply with a request from the DSMA Committee to censor the name of a British military official, Lieutenant Colonel Sid Purser, who was supporting Cameroon’s dictator, Paul Biya.
Biya, 93, has ruled the police state for more than four decades with British support even while our reporting has revealed that the UK government is well aware of his regime’s human rights abuses.
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DSMA is a government body meaning its officers must comply with the civil service code. The code states that “You must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests”.
This quote is important since it relates to Declassified’s blacklisting by the MoD in 2020. The code was explicitly highlighted in the MoD’s review of that blacklisting to show that MoD media officers were wrong to discriminate against us.
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Israeli soldiers are seen as Israeli military mobility continues on the Gaza border, in Nahal Oz, Israel on December 13, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]
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.
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.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Keir Starmer welcomed Israel’s president to Downing Street in September (Photo: Guy Bell / Alamy)
The horror of Israel’s genocide exposes the UK’s oligarchic governance system, and implores us to transform our political system
This should be a pivotal moment in British history. Our political system has utterly failed to confront a genocide.
Rather, that system has allowed the British establishment to be complicit in one of the worst horrors of our time — Israel’s two-year offensive against Palestinians, complete with ethnic cleansing, systematic attacks on schools and hospitals, and crimes against humanity.
Now, under a current supposed ceasefire, Israel is still killing Palestinians and their plight in Gaza remains dire, as the world sees the extent of the mass destruction visited on them.
Throughout the attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, British leaders have actively cooperated with Israel in their military, trade and diplomatic policies.
Still now, significant sanctions on Israel are completely off the government’s agenda – a striking contrast to Russia – because the establishment chooses to back Israel even in its criminality.
There is little morality in British political and economic decision-making. But this doesn’t mean the system is “broken”; it’s working as it’s intended to.
What we’re witnessing is the pinnacle of ministerial impunity for complicity in crimes overseas, and the utter irrelevance of human rights and international law to UK policy-making. More important to the establishment than these has been protecting Israel, and the British and Israeli arms industries.
Gaza illustrates many deep problems in British governance and exposes the illusion that the UK is a democracy. A mass movement is needed to address ten major issues.
Upholding human rights
Most obviously, Gaza shows how Whitehall’s foreign policy-making doesn’t prioritise human life, or even take it seriously.
From the outset in October 2023, UK ministers put their strategic alliance with Israel above the lives of dehumanised Palestinians, even as the death toll mounted in the tens of thousands. Ministers in both Conservative and Labour governments overtly apologised for obvious Israeli breaches of international law and human rights.
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Upholding international law
Every UK government says it upholds international law but this is plainly untrue. Gaza highlights that ministers think they can behave like criminals, supporting the laws they like and ignoring those they don’t.
Whitehall has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Israeli war crimes and given ‘special immunity’ for Israeli military leaders to visit Britain. It has done nothing to support the various international bodies demanding the UK fulfils its obligations to stop aiding Israel’s occupation policies and “prevent and punish” it, as the Genocide Convention demands.
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Holding ministers accountable
We have to face the fact there is currently little chance of holding British ministers to account for their complicity in Israel’s genocide. The UK’s governance system has been designed so this cannot happen.
A mediaeval concept called ‘crown immunity’ makes ministers immune from prosecution for deaths overseas, as in Palestine, or at home due to Covid or austerity.
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Responding to popular pressure
The majority of the British public has opposed Israel’s attack on Gaza and sympathises with the Palestinians.
Public pressure – including dozens of big national marches – eventually forced the government to pull back (at least rhetorically) from its initial unadulterated public support for Israel’s mass attacks.
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Britain has all the fancy trimmings of democracy but little of the real practice of it. UK foreign policy is in reality made by an elite few and routinely doesn’t promote the national public interest or real national security.
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Greater MP accountability
What is parliament for? If our elected MPs cannot collectively ensure the establishment is not complicit in genocide – the most heinous international crime – or that governments uphold international law – another basic duty – then frankly the power they have is fictitious and they’ve lost the right to represent the British people.
MPs do not routinely hold ministers to account and have utterly failed to do so over Gaza.
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Barring a general election there are very few mechanisms at the disposal of UK citizens to formally hold their MP to account for their actions between elections.
MPs failing to challenge British backing for Israel’s genocide should be booted out of office by the electorate.
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Ending excessive government secrecy
The UK system thrives on official secrecy, the chief currency of Whitehall which has been described as the ‘English disease’.
We put up with the extreme state of official secrecy only because we’ve so far had to, because there has been no serious attempt by a political party to open up the system and make it less secretive.
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We have to finally address this ‘national security’ bullshit which all governments hide behind.
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Supporting independent media
Gaza clearly shows the media routinely function as de facto assets of the state, amplifying its views and failing to adequately report independent or contradictory narratives.
Compare Declassified’s numerous revelations about the extent to which the UK has been supporting Israel with Britain’s ‘mainstream’ national media, which regularly parrots Israeli propaganda.
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Public anger with the way the legacy media have reported on the genocide is palpable.
But there’s little genuine media accountability in the UK and outlets routinely publish false information with no comeback. Stronger democratic regulation that promotes higher media standards, whilst of course preserving free speech, is needed.
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Curbing the power of the Israel lobby
A foreign power wielding undue influence over UK politics is neither democratic nor acceptable – it’s why many people voted for Brexit. The government is rightly keen to prevent influence from states like Russia or China but actively welcomes it from Israel.
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Ensuring independence from the US
Britain’s kow-towing to Israel is substantially due to Whitehall’s unwillingness to offend the US, for whom support for Israel is a cardinal feature of foreign policy. This again shows that Britain is not truly an independent state.
Perhaps few needed reminding of this, especially those who lived through Tony Blair’s defiance of the public to work alongside Washington in the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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Protecting civil liberties
The government’s willingness to shelve some of our democratic rights on the altar of backing a foreign state, and one engaged in genocide, is an alarming sign of establishment priorities.
Faced with major opposition to its policies, the government has resorted to policing the opposition to them and in restricting civil liberties. The clampdown on the right to protest has included repeated attempts to restrict protest routes and the police questioning MPs under caution for breaching protest “conditions”. This shows elite contempt for free speech and reveals also the weakness of the establishment’s arguments.
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Building a movement against war, militarism and impunity
The establishment will not concede any of these changes willingly. It is obvious to say, but the UK needs an organised movement against war, militarism and impunity.
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UK complicity in the genocide endured. These last two years should cause a sober assessment of how the state responds to challenges and what is necessary to defeat the British war machine.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.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.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
The Houses of Parliament. (Photo: Chris Frost / Alamy)
Campaign comes after officials blocked Declassified from holding a press pass, citing our Gaza ‘standpoint’.
More than 100 politicians, journalists and campaigners have condemned a “flagrant and partisan attempt to suppress investigative journalism” by parliament.
It comes after officials blocked Declassified from holding a press pass, citing the “particular standpoint” of our investigations.
They even flagged a recent article about the risk of pro-Israel bias in Westminster.
Now, an open letter calls on authorities to urgently review this decision and issue Declassified with a press pass.
The open letter has also been signed by more than 5,800 Declassified readers and supporters, and was hand-delivered to Westminster officials this afternoon.
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Parliament has issued passes to almost 500 journalists, providing access to the corridors of power in Westminster. They include many from right-wing outlets like Guido Fawkes and GB News.
When Declassified’s application for a pass was first rejected, officials claimed it was due to capacity “limitations within the Parliamentary estate”.
But documents released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed there was no limit to the number of press passes that can be issued – and capacity was not even discussed as a consideration.
Instead, they cited the “standpoint” of our foreign policy investigations – and bizarrely even claimed that foreign policy does not count as “politics”.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
