The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) has sent a letter to the UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Peter Kyle, demanding the cancellation of the so-called “Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,” due to be held at an undisclosed venue in London on 14 June, and warning that permitting it to proceed would facilitate the commission of a war crime on British soil and place the United Kingdom in direct breach of its obligations under international law.
The AOHR UK explained that the event markets and facilitates the sale of property in illegal settlements of the Israeli occupation in the occupied Palestinian territory, advertised alongside properties inside the territory held by the Israeli occupation, and supported by financing arrangements said to include a bank linked to the Israeli occupation that funds settlement construction. It noted that the event’s website displayed a map presenting the whole of historic Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as territory of the Israeli occupation, alongside imagery of occupied East Jerusalem.
The AOHR UK letter affirmed that the settlements of the Israeli occupation are illegal under international law, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, and that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016) reaffirmed that these settlements “have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under international law,” and that the transfer by an occupying power of its population into occupied territory constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
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The AOHR UK also noted in its letter that the crime of population transfer is incorporated into UK law through the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which also criminalises conduct ancillary to it — including aiding, facilitating or encouraging its commission — and that holding an event in London which markets, brokers and facilitates the acquisition by civilians of property in occupied territory amounts to conduct ancillary to that crime; it may further constitute money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 where the land, or the proceeds of its sale, derives from unlawful conduct. It added that, following the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024, the United Kingdom is bound, as a third State, not to recognise as lawful the situation arising from the settlement enterprise and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining it.
The AOHR UK called on the Department for Business and Trade to take all measures within its powers to prevent the event from proceeding; to issue clear public guidance before 14 June confirming that marketing or facilitating the sale of property in occupied territory is incompatible with UK policy and international law and carries legal, regulatory and reputational consequences; to warn financial institutions, payment processors and professional firms that providing services to the event’s transactions risks facilitating activity contrary to the United Kingdom’s obligations and may incur liability under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and the Proceeds of Crime Act; and to coordinate with the Home Office, which holds policing and immigration powers, to ensure the event is prevented and investigated.
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