Jeremy Corbyn-led Gaza inquiry kicks off in London
An event examining the UK’s role in Israel’s war on Gaza, hosted by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, is under way in London.
“The suffering of the Palestinian people have gone on for a long time, but 63,000 have died since October 2023, and we’re watching livestreamed on television children being starved to death,” Corbyn said in his opening remarks at “The Gaza Tribunal”.
“It is our job as members of parliament, it is our job as citizens to hold our government to account for what is going on,” said Corbyn, now an independent MP launching a new left-wing party.
We must ‘look at reality with open eyes’, says Gaza inquiry speaker
Neve Gordon, professor of human rights law at Queen Mary University of London and the vice president of the British Society for Middle East Studies, is among the first speakers at the informal Gaza tribunal.
Gordon said his motivation for participating in the event is rooted in his upbringing and the lessons he carried from his childhood religious teachings in Judaism. Justice was a central theme, through just means, he said.
“One of the key roles in this tribunal is … to look at reality with open eyes, and to speak truth in the pursuit of justice,” he said.
British doctor recalls bombardment, malnutrition at Gaza hospitals
Nick Maynard, a British doctor who recently returned from a third trip to Gaza, is one of the latest speakers to address the Corbyn-led Gaza inquiry. He said he witnessed “daily” war crimes in the enclave that seem “clear to me to be genocide and ethnic cleansing”.
During his time in Gaza, Maynard said Israel bombed the intensive care unit of Gaza City’s Al-Aqsa Hospital “whilst I was operating in the operating theatre next door”.
He also recalled a seven-month-old girl – Zaynab – dying of malnutrition. “You could see every rib, every bone in her body,” said Maynard. “She was being fed with water mixed with sugar, we had completely run out of formula feed in Nasser [Hospital].”
“She died while I was there,” he continued. “Four days before she died, US doctors had brought in formula feed, knowing there was a shortage. They had those removed, deliberately, by Israeli guards. That formula feed may have saved Zaynab.”
Gaza has been “failed by our media” and “failed by our government”, he added.
