Bournemouth, 4th October 2025 – The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) hosted a Green Party Conference Panel Event entitled: “International Law and Palestine.” The panel event took place on Saturday evening at Bournemouth International Centre, and was chaired by ICJP’s Head of Public Affairs and Communications Jonathan Purcell.
The full panel of speakers included:
- Shahin Ashraf MBE – Green Party Spokesperson for Peace & Global Justice
- Ehab Omar – Co-founder of the British Palestinian Families Network
- Dania Abul Haj – Senior Legal Officer at ICJP
Panellists discussed the need to hold perpetrators and supporters of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians accountable and highlighted the importance of exposing the complicity of UK Government officials in these crimes.
ICJP’s Senior Legal Officer Dania Abul Haj said:
“The genocide in Gaza has persisted for two years, only growing more brutal with every passing moment of every day. Palestinians in Gaza have all lost something if not everything. Testimonies collected by ICJP from first hand victims confirm the magnitude of suffering and dehumanisation people have been subjected to by Israel.
Leading experts all around the world have reaffirmed the view that Israel’s conduct in Gaza amounted to genocide, including the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the oPt, the UN commission of inquiry, the Lemkin institute and many others.
All this, while the current UK Government failed to make an assessment of genocide earlier, and continually fails to make it, as we have seen them argue in the arms exports case before the high court.”
Ehab Omar (Co-founder of the British Palestinian Families Network) spoke of the “ordinary dreams” of Palestinian children, of the stories he carries for the medics, journalists, and aid workers who have “paid the ultimate sacrifice to awaken humanity” to the atrocities suffered by Palestinians in Gaza and across the globe. Condemning the unlawfulness of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, he said:
“[It is] an occupation that kills our children, because they claim they will be terrorists; an occupation that cuts water and electricity because they have the ‘God given right’ to do so; an occupation that weaponises starvation because ‘democracy’ entitles them to do so; and an occupation where the ‘simple solution’ is the transfer, exile, and oppression of the Palestinian people to Sinai, forever.”
Shahin Ashraf MBE (Green Party Spokesperson for Peace & Global Justice) discussed the urgency and horror of the humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza, offering insight from her 25+ years of experience in humanitarianism. Her work currently focuses on Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Gaza.
In a conference that was deeply concerned with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Green Party passed a motion calling for the Israeli military to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation and for the UK to apologise for the Balfour Declaration. This newly official party policy places the Greens yet again at the forefront of Palestinian solidarity in UK politics.
Backing the motion, Green Party leader Zack Polanski told conference that it was a “moral imperative” to pass the policy and that Britain should “formally apologise to the people of Palestine for the Balfour Declaration”, which in 1917 expressed British support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians is an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law.
- Please contact the ICJP press team at [email protected] for photographs and a full video of the speeches.
