Across continents, from the besieged streets of Gaza to the occupied territories of Western Sahara, a profound moral crisis confronts the international community. These are not isolated conflicts, but parallel manifestations of prolonged occupation, systemic injustice, and international indifference. At Adala UK, we reaffirm our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples in their legitimate struggles for self-determination and human dignity. We also call on the United Kingdom to act consistently, uphold its legal and moral obligations, and stop enabling regimes that violate international law.

Gaza: A Catastrophe of Unprecedented Scale

In Gaza, the relentless assault by Israeli forces—by land, air, and sea—has turned the territory into what UN experts describe as a “landscape of desolation.” Since the collapse of the ceasefire in March 2025, over 52,500 Palestinians have been killed, 70% of whom are women and children. On 18 March alone, 600 people were killed in 24 hours, including 400 children. Over 118,000 people have been wounded, while 2.1 million civilians remain trapped under siege, deprived of food, water, medical aid, and shelter.

This devastation is not incidental. It is systematic, deliberate, and, according to independent UN experts and human rights organizations, bears the hallmarks of genocide. Israeli officials have openly discussed plans to forcibly concentrate Gaza’s population into a small “humanitarian zone” while rendering the rest of the territory uninhabitable—a plan Adala UK, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs has condemned as ethnic cleansing and extermination.

The use of starvation as a weapon of war, repeated evacuation orders that trap civilians without access to aid, and the bombing of humanitarian convoys and health facilities have all deepened the crisis. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued three rounds of provisional measures ordering Israel to halt its campaign. These orders have been defied.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet, many states, including the UK, continue to provide arms, political cover, and economic partnerships to the very regime accused of orchestrating these atrocities.

Western Sahara: Silenced Occupation, Enduring Resistance

Meanwhile, in Western Sahara, the United Kingdom has broken with decades of international consensus by recognizing Morocco’s so-called “autonomy plan,” which seeks to entrench Morocco’s control over the territory without a genuine referendum on independence. This shift, announced in June 2025, follows a similar move by France and echoes the Trump administration’s 2020 recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in exchange for normalization with Israel.

This recognition comes despite repeated UN resolutions affirming the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, and in the context of ongoing repression by Moroccan authorities, including:

• Systematic surveillance and harassment of Sahrawi activists.
• Arbitrary detention and torture of political prisoners, such as the Gdeim Izik group, convicted in trials marred by reports of forced confessions.
• A ban on the UN Human Rights Office visiting the territory since 2015.

The European Court of Justice, in a ruling reaffirmed in 2024, declared that EU-Morocco trade agreements cannot lawfully apply to Western Sahara without the explicit consent of the Sahrawi people, emphasizing that the territory is distinct from Morocco. Yet, economic and diplomatic normalization continues.

As of early 2025, more than 173,000 Sahrawi refugees remain in limbo in camps near Tindouf, Algeria—many of whom have lived there for generations, exiled from their homeland.

The UK’s Double Standard and the Risk of Complicity

The UK’s recent shift in policy—publicly condemning the Netanyahu government and expressing concerns about war crimes in Gaza, while at the same time strengthening ties with Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara—highlights a dangerous inconsistency. It undermines the credibility of British foreign policy and exposes the UK to legal and moral liability under the Genocide Convention, which obliges all signatory states to prevent genocide wherever it occurs, not merely to punish it after the fact.

The continued sale of weapons to Israel, despite the evidence of atrocity crimes, must cease immediately. The UK-Israel Trade Partnership Agreement and the UK’s 2030 Roadmap for bilateral relations must be reviewed and revised to remove protections for impunity.

Likewise, the UK’s recognition of Morocco’s occupation must be reversed. Doing so not only flouts international law, but emboldens regimes that repress entire peoples and normalize occupation as a tool of foreign policy.

A Call to Action

At Adala UK, we urge the British government and all democratic nations to:

• Cease all arms sales and military assistance to the Israeli government.
• Support and comply with international accountability mechanisms, including the ICC and ICJ.
• Withdraw recognition of Morocco’s autonomy plan, and uphold the right of the Sahrawi people to a UN-supervised referendum on independence.
• Reinstate international human rights monitoring in both Gaza and Western Sahara.
• Champion the rights of refugees, prisoners of conscience, and civilians who suffer daily under occupation and blockade.

The world stands at a historic crossroads. To remain passive is to become complicit. But to act with courage and principle is to honor the promise of human rights and dignity for all peoples—Palestinian, Sahrawis, and beyond.

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Adala UK remains committed to amplifying the voices of the oppressed and holding governments accountable. In Gaza and Western Sahara, the future depends not only on the resilience of the peoples who suffer, but on whether the international community has the will to uphold the principles it claims to defend.

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