Members of the Development Studies Association welcome the recent statement by the UK government opposing the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

As researchers committed to social justice, equality and an end to conflict and inequality, what we are witnessing is the erosion of the very basic principles that underpin and give meaning to our work. Many of our members urge for urgent action designed to resolve the situation.

DSA members who wish to add their comments to this call may email their contributions.

“Israel’s blockade of Gaza must end so that life saving humanitarian aid can be distributed. While the UK government’s recent condemnation of the situation is welcome, sanctions alone seem unlikely to change the urgent plight of the residents of Gaza or address the government of Israel’s ongoing military and political project in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Concerted international action on multiple fronts is urgently required to bring this horrific conflict (and others) to a more permanent conclusion”.

“The recent turns of the UK Government are important and welcome, despite being long overdue and not enough.”“In the last seventeen months, we have been witnessing the most violent forms of colonial and genocidal violence that no book could prepare us for. It has culminated in the man-made humanitarian catastrophe, clearly depicted in [the 20 May] statement to the Parliament by the Foreign Secretary.”

“All of this should and could have been prevented. The UN, scholars and civil society actors in Palestine and globally have been denouncing and documenting Israel’s use of starvation as a method of warfare since October 2023. Today, famine and starvation are widespread in Gaza, and thousands of people risk dying in the next few hours if Israel’s blockade is not lifted.”

“It is a legal and moral obligation for the UK to act urgently upon the latest statements and stop the unfolding genocide. The condemnation of Israel’s military expansion and its proposed militarisation of aid, the suspension of trade talks with Israel, the sanctions on a few illegal settlers and the condemnation of the abhorrent Israeli expansion plans are important steps forward, but are not enough. The numerous previous calls on the Israeli government to stop its military operation and lift the humanitarian aid blockade have remained unheard.”

“The UK government has the power and the legal instruments to make a difference by taking concrete actions, including the suspension of all trade and military agreements, economic sanctions, and urgent international coordination to ensure the end of Israel’s siege on Gaza and its decades-long impunity.”

This is a defining moment for Palestine, the humanitarian and development sectors, and humanity as a whole. There is an urgent need for courageous and responsible actions from everyone, including all humanitarian and development scholars and practitioners, to defend and honour those universal principles of human equality, dignity and self-determination that lie at the foundations of our work, and which have been systematically eroded and derided in front of our eyes. We do not need to be Middle East experts to recognise that what has been happening in Gaza and Palestine is shameful and unacceptable and must be stopped now.

“As a founding member of the UN, the UK government must recognise the UN’s repeated assertion that the Israeli state’s current actions in Gaza break international law, by immediately ending the sale of arms to Israel. This is the least our government can do at this critical time.”

“Firstly, I welcome [the Foreign Secretary’s recent statement to the HoC on Gaza], despite its complicit lateness. I welcome it because it said what so many Palestinians, civil society organisations, researchers and activists (those with lived experience) have been saying for years. When he cited PM Netanyahu’s explicit goal to take over Gaza letting in aid “just enough to prevent hunger”, I was reminded of Sara Roy’s words in 1995. Her seminal work on the “de-development” of Gaza by Israel says:

‘Israel’s particular form of settler colonialism…has integrated Palestinian resources and labor into Israel as a mechanism to hasten the full incorporation of the land and other economic resources into the Jewish state.’ (Roy, 1995: 5).

“The process of land appropriation and parallel de-development of infrastructure has been going on since the Nakba of 1948. As a recent commentator says about the level of control Israel has over Gaza (borders, energy supply), the genocidal violence since 2023 has revealed “the norm without the mask” (Santana, 2025).“In the higher education sector, we aspire to explore the boundaries of knowledge and push outward to new understandings. But the Palestinian high education sector and knowledge production has been systematically decimated by Israel over decades, leading to claims of “scholasticide” (Nabulsi, 2009) and “educide” (Rabaia and Habash, 2024). Moreover, there is evidence that Israel’s own university sector is complicit in this process (Wind, 2024).

“This week an academic in Gaza recently wrote to me:

‘The situation is getting worse everywhere in Gaza and in all life aspects and is likely to get worse over the next few days…Killing and burning families, starvation, malnutrition, headache, sleep disorders, weakness, fatigue, drowsiness, lack of concentration, stress, disappointment are common to all families in all of Gaza…I have not been able to do any academic effort or activity for the last week and still feel weak and unable to concentrate.

“The DSA aims to “deepen understanding of how global poverty, inequalities, conflict and environmental destruction are produced, sustained and may be overcome”. I, therefore, urge development scholars and fellow DSA members to contribute to our understanding of how this destruction of the sector we all work in has been produced and sustained.”

“Immediate and decisive actions must be taken now to end the Israeli siege, and the resulting genocide, starvation, murdering of Palestinian children, women, elderly people and destruction of the entire civil society on the Gaza Strip. The actions against the people of Gaza have persisted for more than 19 months with democratic nations watching the genocide live, without taking meaningful actions to stop the slaughter of innocent Palestinians.”

“Democracy and morality must not accept the barbaric actions, genocide and the destruction of hospitals, schools, university and civilian infrastructure. The resulting massive destruction, starvation and displacement are not acts of self-defense; these are acts of revenge against Palestinians simply because of their identity. Is it truly ‘victory’ to kill civilians? Is it a ‘democracy’ to starve, displace and kill civilians who reject Israeli occupation? Who else in the world starves civilians and denies civilians access to humanitarian aid to achieve their so-called ‘victory’?”

“The genocidal and colonial actions against Palestinian civilians are also expanding in the West Bank, where Israelis forces and settlers are destroying refugee camps and displaced entire populations as seen in Jenin.”

“The UK has the political and diplomatic power and influence to stop these genocidal actions on the Gaza Strip. It has a responsibility to stand with humanity and morality and protect what remains of civilian life by advocating for peace, development and change in the region, in response to the Palestinians’ self-determination and existence.”

“The UK was joined by Canada and France in its recent statement decrying Israel’s actions against Gaza, threatening sanctions if the blockade preventing humanitarian relief was not lifted. For the first time, leaders from these three nations described Israel’s latest military escalation in Gaza as ‘wholly disproportionate,’ warned that denying aid to Gaza ‘risks’ breaching international law, and pledged that they ‘will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions.’ While I applaud this statement, it must be followed with concrete actions, including ending any existing arms deals with Israel, as well as sanctions if the blockade of aid is not fully lifted.

“This is an important moment for real international leadership that will stop the violence and genocide against Palestinians, and prevent the impending famine in Gaza. I support the UK’s Development Studies Association joining other professional and scholarly associations in calling for the UK government to take such concrete steps, even as I work here in Canada with colleagues in the Canadian Association for International Development Studies as well as other associations to push my government to show such real international leadership.”

“As the horrors rage on in Gaza, we see that it continues to be framed as a ‘Middle Eastern problem’, a ‘war’ and other such narratives that absolve us of complicity. Yet the West is complicit – primarily the United States and its billion dollars of ‘aid’ to Israel, but also substantively the United Kingdom and Australia, amongst other Western allies. While the recent statement from the UK, France and Canada is welcome, the time to act is now. It is reported that the UK has sent 8,630 separate munitions to Israel since September 2024. All states, including the UK and Australia have legal obligations to prevent and punish genocide. When we look back at the genocide being enacted by Israel on Gaza, the UK, Australia and its allies will be found to be complicit. Making strong statements is not enough. Economic sanctions, the severing of trading relationships and intensive diplomatic pressure are necessary to try to avert this humanitarian catastrophe.”

“I join members of the UK’s Development Studies Association in calling for the UK government, and other governments such as Australia, to take more concrete and decisive steps to end the genocidal violence and violations of International Humanitarian Law in Palestine, and to prevent the impending famine in Gaza. The recent statement by the UK government opposing the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza is a welcome development. But the UK government must go further through concrete actions including economic sanctions, the suspension of all trade and military agreements, and urgent international coordination to end Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid and siege on Gaza. The UK should also join 148 countries, including Norway, Ireland and Spain, in recognising Palestine as a state. Without such concrete and decisive actions, the UK will remain complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity and decades-long impunity.”

DSA members who wish to add their comments to this call may email their contributions.