Palestinians pursuing an apology from the UK over colonial-era war crimes allegations have urged the government to respond in light of its recognition this week of a state of Palestine.
The group submitted a 400-page legal petition to the Foreign Office earlier this month seeking an official apology and reparations from the UK.
They represent 13 families who say they were subjected to violence, exile or repression during the period known as the British Mandate in historical Palestine from 1917 until 1948.
Victor Kattan, who speaks for the petitioners, said the government had a responsibility to acknowledge what took place “to advance understanding and knowledge” about its past.
Speaking to the during this week’s UN conference in New York, he welcomed Britain’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state – but argued it had not properly addressed the UK’s historical conduct and legacy.
“Britain denied self-government to the Palestinian community… It empowered a high commissioner to behave like a dictator [and] Palestinian people bore the brunt,” he said.
“Recognition alone does not deal with all these historic problems which for Palestinians are not history but the living reality to this day,” said Prof Kattan, an expert in public international law at the University of Nottingham.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) would not confirm whether ministers had been made aware of the legal petition saying it did not “routinely comment on” them, although the understands that Deputy Prime Minister and former Foreign Secretary David Lammy is to ask officials to look into the submission.
It documents three decades of alleged abuses by UK forces during mounting violence until 1948, after which the UK rapidly withdrew and the State of Israel was declared.
The alleged abuses by British forces range from murder, torture, expulsion and collective punishment which the submission says repressed the Arab Palestinian population amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In 2022, a review of some of the historical evidence involved found details of arbitrary killings, arson of entire villages, “caging” of civilians in the open air, the use of human shields by strapping them to the front of military vehicles and the introduction of home demolitions as collective punishment.
The evidence included audio recordings made decades later in which British soldiers and police officers described abuses. Some were conducted within formal policy guidelines for UK forces at the time or with the consent of senior officers.
The UK Ministry of Defence said in 2022 it was aware of historical allegations against armed forces personnel during the period, and any evidence provided would be “reviewed thoroughly”.
During World War One, Britain invaded Palestine, driving out the Ottoman Turks, and it facilitated its promise for a Jewish homeland made in the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
In the decades that followed, violence mounted between Arabs and Jews.
An insurgency known as the Arab Revolt broke out against British rule from 1936 until 1939. It was brutally suppressed by the British leaving about 10% of the adult male Arab Palestinian population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled, according to one estimate.
The Palestinian petitioners seek to build on previous concessions made by the UK over colonial-era war crimes, including this year’s apology for the 1948 Batang Kali massacre in Malaya and the settlement over abuses of Kenyans during the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s.
The decision by the UK, France and several other countries to recognise a Palestinian state saw them join more than 150 nations that already do so.
The move was welcomed by Palestinians – but rejected by Israel and the US, which argued it damaged efforts to mediate a ceasefire in the war in the Gaza Strip.