This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Israel’s former foreign minister Tzipi Livni has been granted special diplomatic immunity by the UK government after a Metropolitan police request to interview her over allegations about war crimes during the 2008-09 military operation in Gaza.

Israel expressed “great concern” to London over the summons on Thursday for a “voluntary interview” from Scotland Yard detectives examining alleged war crimes, as Livni prepared to attend a conference in London organised by the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“We would have expected different behaviour from a close ally such as the UK,” a foreign ministry statement said. “Israel is fully committed to the rule of law – in both times of peace and in times of war.”

Livni was foreign minister at the time of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against Hamas, which according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem resulted in 1,391 Palestinian deaths, at least 759 of them non-combatants.

She told Israeli Army Radio on Monday the police request was non-mandatory but “unacceptable”.



Livni said in London that she was proud of the decisions she had taken in government, and that Hamas had continued to attack Israel despite the withdrawal of Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005. She added: “The British legal system is being abused.”



This is the third time that Livni, who it was agreed would meet a senior UK Foreign Office official during her trip, has been given immunity in related circumstances.

In 2014 while she was justice minister, efforts were made by British lawyers acting with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights to persuade the Crown Prosecution Service to order her arrest. The PCHR complained that such diplomatic intervention endorsed “the rule of the jungle”.

Although originally on the Israeli right, Livni supports a two-state solution and was heavily involved in peace negotiations with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Scotland Yard said it did not comment on whom it wished to interview and added: “There is no ongoing investigation.”