The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has reportedly closed an internal unit that tracked potential Israeli breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza and Lebanon, in a move that would also end funding for a major external monitoring project used in official reviews of arms exports and conflict-related allegations.
The development was first reported by *The Guardian* and carried by Al Jazeera on Thursday. According to the newspaper, the closure is part of departmental cuts and restructuring inside the FCDO, including changes following a review by former permanent secretary Olly Robbins.
The reported move centres on an internal international humanitarian law cell established after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and the war that followed. The House of Commons Library has previously said the FCDO set up a dedicated team in late 2023 to assess Israel’s commitment and capability to comply with international humanitarian law during export-control reviews.
The Guardian said the closure also brings an end to FCDO funding for the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project, run by the Centre for Information Resilience, or CIR. It said officials would lose access to a database containing 26,000 verified incidents across Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon since October 2023.
According to the report, that material has been used by FCDO teams assessing whether UK arms export licences to Israel should remain suspended, and by British posts in Tel Aviv, Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem to assess incidents quickly as they occurred. The newspaper also said the head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command’s war crimes team had stressed the value of CIR material in helping officers examine war-crimes allegations.
The reported loss of that evidence stream could carry direct policy implications. On 2 September 2024, then foreign secretary David Lammy announced the suspension of about 30 arms export licences to Israel for use in Gaza, saying there was a “clear risk” that some exports might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law. In a response to the Foreign Affairs Committee published on 30 October 2025, the government said it was continuing to refuse relevant applications and carrying out regular assessments using the “latest information”.
The story also lands days after Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper again put international law at the centre of the government’s public messaging. In a Mansion House speech on 9 April, Cooper said “respect for the rule of law is a core British value”. In the Commons on 21 April, she told MPs that Israeli settlement expansion and related decisions were a “flagrant violation of international law” and said the government had already taken measures including sanctions and action on arms sales.
Since 2024, Britain has presented a series of moves as evidence of a firmer line on the legal and accountability aspects of the conflict. Those steps have included the suspension of some arms licences to Israel, joint sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in June 2025, formal recognition of the State of Palestine in September 2025, and continued support for international courts and other accountability mechanisms.
*The Guardian* linked the reported closure to broader budget pressures. In February, the government said the Integrated Security Fund’s allocation for the Middle East and North Africa would be narrowed and reduced by 20 per cent over the current spending review period, from £69.5m in 2026/27 to £57.0m in 2028/29. The FCDO’s annual report has also pointed to workforce controls, recruitment restrictions and a voluntary exit scheme launched in late 2024 as part of efforts to reduce headcount.
CIR has said publicly that it has been documenting and verifying incidents across Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel and Lebanon since October 2023. Its public conflict map uses videos, photographs, satellite imagery and other media gathered through open-source investigations. By 28 November 2024, the organisation said it had archived more than 8,000 pieces of content and verified more than 2,500. By 18 January 2025, it said more than 1,300 incidents had been verified for the public map and that it would continue monitoring ceasefire compliance.
*The Guardian* said the wider programme had supported more than 20 open-source investigations and described it as the UK’s only project collecting, verifying and analysing incidents in Israel and the occupied territories at that scale. It also said the public conflict map drew more than 25,000 views in a single day.
The reported decision has drawn criticism from rights and arms-control campaigners. Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, told *The Guardian* it was “damning” to cut the unit while serious violations and atrocity crimes continued globally. Katie Fallon of Campaign Against Arms Trade argued that ending the monitoring capacity risked reducing scrutiny of ministers’ handling of international humanitarian law concerns.
It was not immediately clear whether ministers specifically approved the closure, whether the CIR contract will end at once or be wound down, or whether the FCDO has put another mechanism in place to review alleged breaches in Gaza and Lebanon. It is also unclear whether the Metropolitan Police or other agencies will retain access to CIR material through another channel.