British Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Francesca Albanese, the UN`s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, says British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has helped to "manufacture consensus" for Israel`s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Albanese, cited by Middle East Eye outlet, said that Britain has played a key role in enabling Israel`s "genocide" in the war-torn Palestinian territory, stressing that London helped to "manufacture consensus" in support of the brutal war.

Speaking on the London-based outlet`s Expert Witness podcast, she discussed her latest report, Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime, which accused 63 countries of aiding Israeli violations of international law in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

"The UK is one of those interesting cases where the political leadership has helped manufacture consensus around the war that Israel has unleashed against the population of Gaza," Albanese said.

"I heard the current prime minister, when he was the leader of the opposition, saying that the curtailing of essential services [in Gaza] was justified - that it was in Israel`s prerogatives - which is absolutely incorrect from a legal point of view," she stressed.

In October 2023, Starmer said in a radio interview with LBC that Israel "has the right" to withhold water and electricity from besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

Starmer "has used his credentials as a lawyer who is an expert on genocide - because he has litigated genocide cases before the International Court of Justice - to dismiss that in Gaza there was an ongoing genocide," Albanese further noted.

She said such actions reflected Britain`s "willful participation in the creation of the conditions that have enabled the genocide."

In her report, presented to the UN General Assembly on October 20, Albanese said that the UK "has played a key role in military collaboration with Israel, despite internal opposition."

She also revealed that Britain maintained military collaboration with Israel, conducting "over 600 surveillance missions over Gaza throughout the genocide, sharing intelligence with Israel."

Albanese also cited reports that under the previous Conservative government, then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron had privately threatened to defund the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it pursued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The UN expert further condemned the Labour government`s decision to ban the activist group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, saying it fostered a "climate of complicity."

"The fact that the government makes a deliberate choice to target civil society action as terrorism... while continuing to support the state that uses and practices terror against a virtually defenseless population, creates a climate of complicity," she said.

Albanese concluded that there is enough evidence to justify an investigation into whether British ministers could face national or international legal action for their role in Israel`s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza.