A group of Palestinian families is demanding an apology and compensation from Britain for war crimes committed during colonial rule.
After the British government recognized a Palestinian state earlier this week, representatives of 12 Palestinian families went to the Foreign Office in London, demanding that the British government acknowledge the war crimes committed during the British Mandate in Palestine.
The petitioners filed a 400-page legal petition in which they allege that they and their family members were subjected to violence, exile or repression during the British Mandate period up to 1948. Victor Kattan, a professor and expert in public international law at the University of Nottingham, who also serves as a spokesperson for the group of Palestinian petitioners, told theBBC after Prime Minister Keir Starmer's announcement recognizing a Palestinian state, that the British government is obliged to acknowledge the alleged war crimes committed during the Mandate, "in order to promote understanding and knowledge of its past."
He added, "Britain denied self-government to the Palestinian community... It empowered a high commissioner to behave like a dictator [and] Palestinian people bore the brunt. Recognition alone does not deal with all these historic problems which for Palestinians are not history but the living reality to this day."
In the petition, the Palestinian families describe three decades of abuses, including killings, torture, expulsions, and collective punishment by British forces, which suppressed the Palestinian Arab population to the point of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They are demanding financial compensation and a public apology from the British government.