Humanitarian organizations have condemned the U.K. Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), for cynical and cruel comments about Israel’s current violations of international law by using food as a weapon of war against the civilian population of Gaza. The offending remarks were made by Jonathan Turner, the chief executive of UKLFI who made light of the July 2024 report published in Britain’s medical journal, The Lancet, which estimated that the Gaza death count to be 186,000 and a separate September 2024 study published in The Lancet which estimated that life expectancy in Gaza decreased by 34.9 years, or about half (−46.3%) the prewar level of 75.5 years. Turner’s cynical joke suggested that Israel’s embargo on food and supplies improved the health of the Gaza civilians by reducing the obesity rate and lowering the levels of tobacco usage. Turner’s comments were made at a meeting to discuss the possible boycott of Israeli produce by the grocery store Co-operative Group.
UKLFI’s members and patrons include Lord David Pannick KC, who has represented Boris Johnson and the late Queen Elizabeth II, former Supreme Court justice Lord John Dyson, and former Conservative Party leader Lord Michael Howard. UKLFI has threatened legal action against the British government over the Foreign Office cancellation in September of export licenses for certain arms shipments to Israel over concerns of a “clear risk” that Israel might use the arms in violation of international humanitarian laws.
The director of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign Ben Jamal said: “As children in the Gaza Strip face the growing risk of starvation, illness and death, the suggestion by the head of U.K. Lawyers for Israel that they might benefit from weight loss is utterly sickening. These repulsive comments illustrate exactly what it means to be ‘for Israel’ and how low its apologists are prepared to sink in their attempts to justify genocide in Gaza.”
