Britain’s Foreign Office has shut down a specialist unit tasked with tracking possible breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon following aid budget cuts.
The International Humanitarian Law (IHL) cell had been responsible for monitoring and assessing allegations of breaches in Middle East war zones.
The move appears to contradict recent statements by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who pledged only weeks ago that respect for international law would be central to the department’s foreign policy agenda.
The Foreign Office told The National the move was part of “an internal restructure” but the cell’s work would carry on with a different team.
“We continue to heavily invest expertise and resource into our conflict prevention and resolution work, including the monitoring of international humanitarian law in Gaza,” it added.
“We are reforming the foreign office to build a more capable, agile and resilient organisation that can respond quickly to changing challenges and crises.”
The closure is part of broader reductions to the Foreign Office’s conflict and atrocity prevention work, a division that has previously issued warnings about emerging crises, including in Sudan.
Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, described the Foreign Office cutbacks as “damning”, arguing it comes at a time of ongoing and serious violations of international law globally.
She warned that a reduction raises questions about whether the UK is meeting its obligations under arms export regulations, the Arms Trade Treaty and the Genocide Convention.
As part of the cuts reported by The Guardian, funding will also end for the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project run by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). The organisation has been a key partner to the Foreign Office, maintaining what is believed to be the world’s largest open-source database of conflict-related incidents across Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.
Its database contains more than 26,000 verified entries, documenting events from October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people. The resource has been widely used by officials to identify patterns, assess risks and inform policy decisions.
The data has also played a key role in evaluating whether UK arms export licences to Israel should remain suspended in compliance with laws of armed conflict.
Officials have raised concerns that losing access to CIR’s analysis will significantly weaken Britain’s ability to monitor conflicts and respond to possible war crimes.
The CIR has also supported law enforcement efforts, including providing material to assist the Metropolitan Police in assessing allegations of war crimes. Its investigations have included more than 20 open-source inquiries, such as examining incidents involving the alleged unlawful killing of children in Gaza.
British diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv, Beirut and Damascus, along with the consulate in Jerusalem, have also relied on CIR’s rapid assessments during major incidents. Its conflict mapping tools have attracted significant public attention, with tens of thousands of views recorded during peak periods.
The cuts are understood to be linked to a broader reduction in the UK’s overseas aid budget, which has been lowered to 0.3 per cent of gross national income, despite a stated ambition to return to 0.7 per cent when fiscal conditions allow.
