Lawyers have submitted harrowing claims to the High Court in London, stressing that Palestinians are being tortured, denied medical treatment in hospitals, and trapped under relentless bombardment, according to a report by The Guardian. The submission is part of a legal bid to stop the UK government from issuing arms export licenses to British companies supplying weapons to "Israel".

The legal submission includes 14 witness statements spanning over 100 pages, featuring testimonies from Palestinian and Western medical doctors working in Gaza’s hospitals, along with accounts from ambulance drivers, civil defense personnel, and aid workers.

The graphic evidence aims to bolster a request for a court order arguing that the UK government’s refusal to ban arms sales is irrational, as it claims there isn’t a clear risk of these weapons being used in breaches of international humanitarian law. According to The Guardian, this is the statutory test the government must apply when deciding whether to grant arms export licenses. The Labour government is currently reviewing this policy.

The signed testimonies have been provided by witnesses, all of whom are identified to the court, though only two are being named by The Guardian to protect families in Gaza from potential retribution. The judicial review is scheduled to take place between October 8 and 10.

The case has been initiated by an alliance of NGOs, including al-Haq, Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch. It marks the first attempt to present such detailed testimony of the Israeli war crimes before a British judge since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

The previous Conservative administration defended its decision to continue granting arms export licenses, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that UK weapons were being used in war crimes.

Testimonies against Israeli aggression

Related News

Israeli forces blunders: 78 troops lost to 'friendly fire'

Oscar winner Javier Bardem slams IOF over Palestinian 'dehumanization'

One of the named witnesses, Dr. Ben Thomson, a Canadian kidney specialist, said he treated a patient who had been forced to stand for 48 hours, requiring a skin graft on his heel. He said he also treated a 60-year-old man who had been stripped naked by Israeli forces, whose wrists had been bound tightly for three days, and who had been dragged on the floor, causing his wrist to be worn down to the bone.

He said: “Every part of the healthcare system has been targeted and destroyed and is now completely incapable of providing care. So many people are dying from issues that are completely treatable," adding that he had personally treated three children whom he could have saved if he had any access to the appropriate medicines.

Read next: IOF soldiers recount how Palestinians were tortured at Sde Teiman

He testified that during his visit to the tent city in Rafah in March, water was rationed to just three liters per day, with one toilet available for every 800 people. He described being forced to reset broken bones without pain medication and recounted a harrowing incident where, due to severe overcrowding in a hospital, a man in his care died “on the floor in a pool of his own blood and brain matter.”

'No militants in al-Aqsa hospital'

In the second named witness statement, Dr. Khaled Dawas, a consultant surgeon at University College Hospital London, described the conditions in Gaza’s hospitals during both his visits as resembling "what he imagined medieval medicine must have been like." He noted that many of his patients were victims of sniper fire, highlighting the dire circumstances under which medical professionals were forced to operate.

He said: “I understand that Israel justifies its attacks on hospitals by reference to its claim that the hospitals are overrun by militants but in my four weeks in al-Aqsa hospital I personally did not see a single one.”

Dr. Dawas reported encountering numerous patients who showed signs of severe abuse from detention camps, including one individual who had been dragged across the ground while tethered by an external fixator supporting a broken limb.

He added that on his second visit, he treated a disabled man who “in detention had been handcuffed, blindfolded and handcuffed to his wheelchair with his wrists tied to the right of his torso for 30 days”.

'Israel bombs safe houses'

Another unnamed British consultant recounted an attack on a safe house where he and other doctors were bombed on January 18. He noted that this incident prompted NGOs to halt sending humanitarian workers to the region.

Despite British diplomats in Cairo assuring that the matter would be addressed at the highest level in the UK, the consultant claims that no one from the UK government followed up with the medical team.