Children play at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City’s Jabalya refugee camp, February 6, 2025, after collecting donated food
Urgent divestment call for local authority schemes
THE Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) has invested over £12 billion in firms complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide, new research by campaigners revealed today.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s (PSC) freedom of information requests have found that LGPS funds, administered by local councils across Britain, invest more than £450 million in BAE Systems, which manufactures components used by Israel’s F-16 fighter jets.
More than £80m is invested in Caterpillar, which produces bulldozers used by Israel to demolish Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals.
And more than £90m is invested in RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon, which produces bombs used by the Israeli military.
Investments in Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet, purveyors of cloud computing infrastructure to Israel’s intelligence-gathering Project Nimbus, totals £4.7bn.
The research also shows that LGPS funds hold more than £28m in Israeli government bonds.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump hold a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 4, 2025. (Photo: Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Instead of kowtowing to Israel and doing the bidding of its genocidal government, the president should act in the interests of our nation,” said one critic.
Amid global outrage over U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to take over the war-torn Gaza Strip, the Republican also faced criticism on Thursday for his executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court.
“Bullying the International Criminal Court is a desperate tactic to intimidate those who uphold international law and seek accountability for Israeli war crimes in Gaza,” said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national executive director Nihad Awad in a statement.
“It’s a ‘lawless Israel first’ policy that further damages the reputation of the United States, which has already been harmed greatly by our nation’s complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” he continued. “Instead of kowtowing to Israel and doing the bidding of its genocidal government, the president should act in the interests of our nation.”
According to NewsNation, which first reported on Trump’s order, it was “originally set to be signed Tuesday and pushed back due to a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” the subject of an ICC arrest warrant over Israel’s assault on Gaza.
“It is obvious that President Trump wants no oversight of his actions or those of the far-right Israeli government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.”
The ICC in November also issued related warrants for former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri. Neither Israel nor the United States—which arms Netanyahu’s government—are parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the tribunal for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
The court “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel,” Trump’s order claims. “The ICC has, without a legitimate basis, asserted jurisdiction over and opened preliminary investigations concerning personnel of the United States and certain of its allies, including Israel, and has further abused its power by issuing baseless arrest warrants targeting” Netanyahu and Gallant.
“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the armed forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest,” the order adds, citing a 2002 U.S. law that opponents call the Hague Invasion Act, which empowers the president to use military force to free any American or citizen of an ally held by the court.
“Americans want more oversight on those in power, not less,” Awad argued. “From his firing of independent U.S. inspector generals to this order, it is obvious that President Trump wants no oversight of his actions or those of the far-right Israeli government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. American greatness relies on check and balances, never on one man’s whims.”
During Trump’s first term, he sanctioned ICC officials and revoked the chief prosecutor’s visa. His new order, NewsNation reported, “will put financial and visa sanctions on individuals and family members who help the ICC investigate U.S. citizens or allies.”
According to NBC News, a White House fact sheet on the order says that “the ICC was designed to be a court of last resort,” and “both the United States and Israel maintain robust judiciary systems and should never be subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC.”
Charlie Hogle, staff attorney with ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement that “victims of human rights abuses around the world turn to the International Criminal Court when they have nowhere else to go, and President Trump’s executive order will make it harder for them to find justice. The order also raises serious First Amendment concerns because it puts people in the United States at risk of harsh penalties for helping the court identify and investigate atrocities committed anywhere, by anyone. This is an attack on both accountability and free speech.”
Sanctioning ICC staff and their families “because they did their job in investigating U.S. torture and advancing justice for Palestinians in the face of Israel’s 15-month total assault on Gaza is a direct attack on the rule of law,” declared Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The broad scope of the executive order is intended to embolden perpetrators across the world and to inhibit the pursuit of international justice against the most powerful.”
Center for International Policy’s vice president of government affairs, Dylan Williams, argued that Trump’s order “continues his march to make America a pariah state” and “provides succor to brutal dictators, aggressors, and other human rights abusers around the world whom he admires.”
“It is not a coincidence that Trump’s move against the ICC comes just hours after he proposed that the United States carry out a crime against humanity in Gaza.”
“It is not a coincidence that Trump’s move against the ICC comes just hours after he proposed that the United States carry out a crime against humanity in Gaza, while standing next to a man wanted by the court to answer for war crimes in that territory,” Williams said. “The objective of attacking the court is to ensure absolute impunity for those, like both of them, who seek to act unrestrained by any law.”
“States that are party to the Rome Statute should reaffirm and carry out their obligations with respect to the court, including the consistent enforcement of its duly issued warrants and orders,” he continued. “American lawmakers should treat this attack on a judicial body and its officers as they do Trump’s efforts to destroy domestic institutions of justice, independent of the fact that they may disagree with certain rulings or actions of such bodies.”
Williams added that “defending the legitimacy of the ICC is an inseparable part of the fight to protect the rule of law in the United States and around the world from the forces of autocracy and oligarchy. Those who fail to firmly oppose Trump’s attack on the court—or worse, support it—are proving themselves to be only fair-weather friends to democracy and human rights at best, or complicit in their destruction outright.”
Netanyahu and Gallant’s visits to the U.S. this week have been met with protests and calls for their arrests.
Punchbowl News‘ Max Cohen reported that Netanyahu met with and pressured U.S. senators to pass a federal ICC sanctions bill that was advanced early last month by the House of Representatives’ Republican majority and 45 Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Cohen said, “reiterated Dems are eager to get a bipartisan compromise and Netanyahu agreed there should be a compromise.”
This post was updated with additional comment and details after the White House released the executive order.
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Campaigners outside the High Court in London where Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, is taking legal action against the Department for Business and Trade over decisions not to suspend licences for the export of weapons and military equipment to Israel, November 18, 2024
A HIGH COURT hearing will be scheduled on the government’s continued export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, it has been confirmed.
This is the latest development in a legal challenge to the arms sales brought by Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (Glan).
Last September, the Labour government failed to impose a full arms embargo as Israel continued its genocide in Gaza, suspending only 30 arms export licences out of 350 in total.
Among the goods still being exported were parts for F-35 warplanes, which are used to drop 2,000lb bombs on innocent civilians.
Court documents revealed in November that the government knew there was a “clear risk” that the exports could be used to violate international humanitarian law, but it did not suspend them, claiming that such action would “have a profound impact on international peace and security” and “undermine US confidence in the UK and Nato.”
In his latest ruling on the export of arms to Israel, Mr Justice Chamberlain noted: “There is a powerful public interest in a quick, final determination of its legality, one way or the other.”
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide 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
Destruction is seen in a cemetery resulting from Israeli attacks as Palestinians try to locate the graves of their relatives in Beit Lahia, Gaza on February 3, 2025. (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
British lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn called for Israeli officials, and countries that have funded the bombardment of Gaza, to “face justice for every single life lost.”
Authorities in Gaza and human rights advocates have warned for months that because of the decimation of the enclave’s healthcare system and civil services, the official death toll was likely a significant undercount—and on Monday, officials said thousands more Palestinians had been confirmed killed by Israel’s U.S.-backed onslaught since October 2023.
Salama Maarouf, head of Gaza’s government media office, told the press gathered at the mostly destroyed al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City that the death toll currently stands at 61,709, with thousands of Palestinians who had previously been listed as missing now presumed dead.
The death toll was previously reported to be 47,487 on Saturday. Journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News said Monday that the number is rapidly going up as “people returning to their neighborhoods discover mass graves and people buried under the rubble or killed and their bodies left at the scene.”
Maarouf said officials now believe the bodies of about 76% of those killed have been recovered, but noted that 14,222 people are still believed to be trapped under rubble or inaccessible to rescue and recovery crews.
Those confirmed to have been killed include 17,881 children, including 214 newborn babies. More than 200 journalists were also killed by Israeli forces before a cease-fire deal was reached in mid-January.
Days after the cease-fire agreement, journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo News noted that the death toll was expected to explode due to the bodies “recovered.”
“The horrors we are about to discover if a cease-fire actually holds will underscore why Israel didn’t want international journalists inside—and why they kept targeting Palestinian journalists,” said Thakker.
The updated death toll was publicized as mediators from the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt began talks on the second phase of the three-part cease-fire agreement. In the first phase, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are set to be freed from Israeli prisons by March, and 33 Israeli hostages are scheduled to be released by Hamas as Palestinians return to their neighborhoods—many of which have been reduced to rubble—and hundreds of aid trucks are allowed into the enclave.
The talks that began Monday aim to establish a permanent cease-fire, with Israeli forces making a complete exit from Gaza.
Fighting could begin again in March if a long-term deal isn’t reached in the coming weeks.
British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn said that as the “true scale of Israel’s atrocities” emerges, “officials must face justice for every single life lost.”
“So should those who continued to send weapons,” said Corbyn, “knowing full well they were enabling genocide.”
As humanitarian and medical workers continued recovery missions in Gaza, the death toll in the West Bank on Monday rose to 70 since the beginning of 2025, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israeli forces and settlers have waged attacks in several West Bank towns and refugee camps in recent weeks, and the Trump administration said late last month that it would continue providing military aid to Israel as it froze nearly all foreign assistance.
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/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Nine countries including South Africa, Namibia, and Chile formed the Hague Group to hold Israel accountable for its crimes
On Friday, January 31, nine nations took coordinated action to form the Hague Group to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law in Palestine. Representatives from the governments of Belize, Bolivia, South Africa, Namibia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, and Senegal gathered in The Hague, in the Netherlands, to inaugurate the collective action.
Today, nine nations — collectively known as The Hague Group — gathered in The Hague to coordinate legal, diplomatic and economic measures against Israel’s violations of international law. pic.twitter.com/uP1UCMAr4x
Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party, also joined the representatives at the Hague. “One year after the [International Court of Justice] heard the South African application on the issue of genocide by Israel against the people of Palestine, [nine nations] have declared their support for the outcomes of that legal process,” Corbyn said. These nine nations “are determined to hold Israel to account, and all those nations that are continuing to supply weapons to Israel that are being used in the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Together, the nine nations intend to uphold international law in the face of Israel’s crimes. This is in relation to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and the the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, issued on January 26, March 28, and May 24 of last year. The Hague Group also declared its intention to prevent the transfer of arms to the Zionist state “in all cases where there is a clear risk that such arms and related items might be used to commit or facilitate violations of humanitarian law” and also prevent the docking of vessels “in all cases where there is a clear risk of the vessel being used to carry military fuel and weaponry to Israel, which might be used to commit or facilitate violations of humanitarian law, of international human rights law, and of the prohibition on genocide in Palestine.” The nations referenced international action to implement an arms embargo against apartheid South Africa.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn explains why he’s at The Hague today as nine nations take co-ordinated action against Israel. pic.twitter.com/8lnOcRTXTw
“We will take further effective measures to end Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine and remove obstacles to the realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine,” read a joint statement issued by the representatives inaugurating the Hague Group. The representatives issued a call for other nations to join the Group “in the solemn commitment to an international order based on the rule of law and international law, which, together with the principles of justice, is essential for peaceful coexistence and cooperation among States.”
