AS OF May 2025, over 53,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 122,000 Palestinians have been injured due to Israel’s ferocious bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip. In the past week, alongside the relentless attacks on the Palestinian people, Israel has launched an outrageous military attack on Iran.

Despite being characterised by the British media as an attack on one of Iran’s nuclear facilities, there was evidence of civilian areas being hit, including attacks on their capital Tehran and hundreds of civilians killed. Israel has been operating with complete impunity in Gaza and now risks a serious threat to peace in the Middle East.

Peace must be the absolute priority for the Middle East; however, peace cannot come without justice and accountability for the actions perpetrated by the Israeli government.

Last year, the International Court of Justice issued an interim ruling which stated that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide and also ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah, where 2.3 million people were seeking refuge from the bombardment. Over a year later, the people of Gaza are being starved and Israel is opening fire and killing Palestinians while they are trying to get food and aid.

How does the British government respond to this? Despite a statement to Parliament last month in which Foreign Secretary David Lammy described Israel’s blockade as “intolerable” and “morally wrong, unjustifiable” and “needs to stop,” the Labour government has continued to export weapons to Israel, which include parts from Israel’s F-35 fighter jets used to drop bombs on the Palestinian people. 

Further to this, Britain is deeply complicit as it has ongoing military collaboration with Israel. According to research by Declassified UK, Project Hezuk is a secret defence agreement between Britain and Israel which is designed to counter “the destabilising regional activity of Iran and Hezbollah.” 

It would achieve this through British-Israeli intelligence collaboration and increasing military co-operation. The Labour government’s weak posturing is really too little, too late when it comes to a genocide in which it has aided and abetted the perpetrator.

Unison’s demands have been clear in its condemnation of the genocide and the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Last year, after hearing from the Palestinian ambassador Husam Zomlot, Unison conference unanimously passed a motion which reiterated the union’s longstanding commitment to boycott, divestment and sanctions and called to step up the campaign to divest from the local government pension scheme and to continue to organise members in their workplaces around Palestine and to continue to support the work of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Essentially, it also supported the calls by the ambassador and the global majority of countries to recognise the independent state of Palestine.

This year, Unison has a motion titled “Building support for a Palestinian state.” This motion, while highlighting the necessity for the British government to comply with its obligations by international law and end its complicity with the genocide in Gaza, crucially points out that despite years of UN resolutions passing supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state, the British government has failed in its responsibility to recognise the state of Palestine.

Despite the 2024 Labour manifesto pledging to recognise “a Palestinian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process,” 146 member states of the UN have officially recognised Palestine, leaving Britain in a small minority of those who have not. 

Palestinian people are facing total erasure — physical, political and legal — not only in Gaza but for over a century of settler colonialism. While Britain only recognises Israel, it cannot meaningfully contribute to any lasting peace. Recognition is a long-overdue affirmation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and their right to exist in Palestine.

Britain has a unique and historical responsibility for the oppression of the Palestinian people, with the implementation of the Balfour agreement in 1917 and the situation that Britain left in 1948. It is long overdue for Britain to make amends and take tangible action to end Israeli impunity.

Unison is clear that recognition of the state of Palestine by the British government, alongside a full arms embargo, would ensure that it is clear to Israel and the US that Palestinians are not going to be ethnically cleansed from their land. 

As Zomlot noted in the Guardian last week, the genocide in Gaza has exposed Israel’s expansionist goals and its intent to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. In the West Bank, Israel has forced the displacement of thousands of Palestinians and replaced them with illegal settlements. The racist ministers in the Knesset (aside from a handful of principled anti-war members like Ofer Cassif) reject the very idea of a Palestinian state.

It is not just a gesture, it is the start of a clear step towards the Palestinian people themselves to decide their own future, the right to their own sovereignty and self-determination. Delaying recognition denies the Palestinian people any national rights and any political agency until Israel allows it.

Unison will continue to lead from the front on this issue and reiterate the calls for Britain to join the majority of the world and recognise the state of Palestine. Unison will call for an end to the arms sales to Israel, for real justice and accountability for the perpetrators of the genocide and for a free and independent Palestine.

Micaela Tracey-Ramos is a member of Unison's NEC.