Data Investigation

UK Lawyers for Israel keeps crying wolf. Regulators keep finding nothing. Hospitals and councils take Palestine down anyway.

UKLFI has reported dozens of charities to Britain's regulators. Where we could find the outcome, the regulator found nothing against the charity in 11 cases out of 14. Its letters to hospitals, councils and colleges work better: Gaza children's art, nurses' badges and Palestinian flags have come down after them.

A girl in Gaza carries a cooking pot along a street lined with rubble to fetch food, August 2024.
Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Archive photo

In four numbers

  • 11 of 14

    UKLFI complaints with a known outcome where the regulator found nothing

  • 20

    UKLFI complaints to regulators with no published outcome

  • 2 days

    from UKLFI's legal threat to Tower Hamlets announcing its flags would come down

  • £831,720

    UKLFI's charity income in 2025. Its accounts name no donor

UK Lawyers for Israel, whose chief executive suggested that Israel's siege of Gaza could help reduce obesity there, is now going after the charities trying to help feed Palestinians in Gaza.

First MSF. Before that the hospitals, the councils, and the small charities run by volunteers. MSF works around the world for people in desperate need, and it is under Charity Commission scrutiny because UKLFI asked for it.

The Telegraph printed UKLFI's case against MSF largely in UKLFI's own words, and left out who killed the man at the centre of it.

How far will they go in service of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gaza?

The irony is that UKLFI is two entities, and one of them is a registered charity that the Charity Commission has already had to look into itself.

So we went through UKLFI's record: every complaint it has announced to a regulator since 2018, how each one ended, and what its letters to hospitals, councils and colleges achieved.

UKLFI cries wolf. Regulators keep finding nothing. But every complaint has to be answered, and when UKLFI threatens legal action, hospitals and councils take Palestine down.

What we found:

  • Most of UKLFI's complaints come to nothing. We found 34 complaints by UKLFI to regulators about charities and community groups since 2018. Where the outcome is known, the regulator found nothing against the charity in 11 of 14. Scotland's regulator told it a cinema's boycott did "not present a regulatory issue".
  • Twenty have no published outcome. Twelve of them went in one batch in December 2024, against charities in a climate justice coalition, most of them small, because the coalition's march linked the climate crisis to the genocide in Gaza.
  • Nobody can say how many it files. The Charity Commission has refused two Freedom of Information requests for the number, because it has "no specific marker" to find who complained. Its whole caseload on the Middle East since October 2023, from every side, is "over 400 cases".
  • Its threats work better than its complaints. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital took down Gaza children's art "following a letter ... suggesting legal action from the UKLFI". Tower Hamlets decided to take Palestinian flags down two days after a UKLFI letter said the council was committing criminal offences. Pearson withdrew an exam paper about a surgeon operating on a child in a Gaza hospital.
  • UKLFI asked for MSF to be banned like a terrorist group. It sent the Home Secretary a dossier on MSF "for consideration under the Terrorism Act". The man at the centre of it, the MSF physiotherapist Fadi al-Wadiya, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in June 2024. The dossier also counts against MSF its "provision of medical supplies" to Gaza's health ministry.
  • The evidence is often the Israeli state's word. UKLFI's MSF dossier rests on staff "identified by the Israeli authorities", the same claims Israel's Diaspora Minister made eight months earlier. When Israel's Foreign Ministry accused a Palestinian health provider of sending donors' money to the PFLP, UKLFI sent the allegation to the provider's British funder the same day. A month into Israel's total block on aid to Gaza, UKLFI's charity gave its platform to COGAT, the Israeli unit that controls that aid. An Israeli minister says its legal director "successfully represents Israel".
  • UKLFI's own charity is under a Commission case. In July 2025 the Commission confirmed "an active case open into UKLFI Charitable Trust", over its relationship with UKLFI's company. The charity took in £831,720 in 2025, and its accounts from 2017 to 2025 do not name a single donor.

Crying wolf at the regulators

UKLFI announces its complaints. It rarely announces how they end. We read its 840 posts since 2018, its archived pages, the regulators' statements and the charities' own replies, and found 34 complaints UKLFI made, or helped others make, to regulators about charities and community groups. We have left out two charities whose cases are still open. We describe every charity except MSF by type, not by name: many of them are small and run by volunteers, and naming them here would only add to the pressure.

UKLFI's complaints to regulators, and how they ended

  • 2018

    Charity

    A medical aid charity for Palestinians

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Links to groups it said were connected to the PFLP

    What happened

    No action. The Commission said no further regulatory action or engagement was required (November 2018)
  • 2018

    Charity

    An anti-poverty charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Links to the PFLP through partner groups

    What happened

    No action. The Commission found no issues to take forward (2019)
  • 2019

    Charity

    A small education charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Its trustees were designated in Israel

    What happened

    No action. The Commission knew of no reason they could not be trustees (October 2019)
  • 2019

    Charity

    A community radio station

    Regulator

    Charity Commission and Ofcom

    What UKLFI alleged

    A presenter's politics show

    What happened

    No action
  • 2019

    Charity

    A national human rights charity

    Regulator

    Information Commissioner

    What UKLFI alleged

    Use of event registrants' data

    What happened

    No action against the charity
  • 2021

    Charity

    The same medical aid charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Funding a Palestinian health provider designated by Israel

    What happened

    No action. The charity had stopped the funding after the Israeli Foreign Ministry's allegations
  • 2022

    Charity

    A national aid charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Funding a Palestinian farming group with alleged PFLP links

    What happened

    No outcome published
  • 2022

    Charity

    The same national human rights charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Its report calling Israel an apartheid state

    What happened

    Closed with advice to the trustees (October 2022)
  • 2022

    Charity

    A students' union

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    A boycott motion outside its objects

    What happened

    Closed after the union dropped the motion
  • 2022

    Charity

    A national students' charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Its incoming president's fitness to be a trustee

    What happened

    Closed, according to the trade press
  • 2023

    Charity

    A small human rights charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Articles and a video it published

    What happened

    Official warning over its accounts and its ties to a non-charity. The Commission said the content was not the charity's activity
  • 2023

    Charity

    A small schools education charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Concerns about its schools programme

    What happened

    No outcome published
  • 2024

    Charity

    A London community cinema

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    A post about cancelling a Eurovision screening

    What happened

    Misconduct finding over the post and advice to the trustees (November 2024)
  • 2024

    Charity

    A national advice charity

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Staff support for Palestine

    What happened

    Closed. No breach of the charity's objects or legal duties (January 2025)
  • 2024

    Charity

    A children's theatre school

    Regulator

    Regulator of Community Interest Companies

    What UKLFI alleged

    Its classes were not for the public benefit

    What happened

    No outcome published. A King's Counsel called UKLFI's harassment claim "wholly without merit"
  • 2024

    Charity

    A London theatre

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Front-of-house staff wearing Free Palestine badges

    What happened

    No outcome published
  • 2024

    Charity

    12 charities in a climate justice coalition, most of them small

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    Aligning with the coalition's campaigns on Gaza

    What happened

    No outcome published for any of the 12
  • 2025

    Charity

    A Scottish cinema

    Regulator

    Scottish Charity Regulator

    What UKLFI alleged

    Its boycott of Coca-Cola and Israeli goods

    What happened

    No action: "do not present a regulatory issue" (March 2025)
  • 2025

    Charity

    An academic association

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    An academic boycott motion

    What happened

    No outcome published
  • 2026

    Charity

    Three small local charities

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    A trustee's personal social media posts

    What happened

    No outcome published
  • 2026

    Charity

    A students' union

    Regulator

    Charity Commission

    What UKLFI alleged

    A student society's fundraising for a Lebanese charity

    What happened

    Closed with advice to the trustees (September 2026)
  • 2026

    Charity

    MSF UK

    Regulator

    Charity Commission, Fundraising Regulator and the Home Secretary

    What UKLFI alleged

    Links to Hamas, PIJ and the PFLP

    What happened

    Regulatory compliance case, open (September 2026)

Where the regulator has said how a complaint ended, it found nothing against the charity in 11 cases out of 14. In the regulators' own words:

  • A Scottish cinema that boycotted Coca-Cola: the concerns "do not present a regulatory issue. The matter is for the charity to decide" (the Scottish Charity Regulator, March 2025).
  • A national advice charity whose staff wore Palestine lanyards: "an internal matter for the charity's trustees to address rather than an activity carried out by the charity, and it appeared that it wasn't a breach of the charity's objects or legal duties" (January 2025).
  • An anti-poverty charity UKLFI linked to the PFLP: the Commission "have not identified any issues that we need to take forward" (2019).
  • A medical aid charity for Palestinians: its trustees had taken "proportionate and considerate steps to properly review and consider the allegations", and the Commission did "not consider any further regulatory action or engagement is required at this time" (2018).
  • A small education charity whose trustees were designated in Israel: the Commission was "not aware of any reason why these individuals cannot legally be trustees of a UK charity" (2019).

Two complaints led to a finding against the charity. A small human rights charity got an official warning over its accounts and its ties to a body that was not a charity, and the Commission said the articles and video UKLFI complained about were not the charity's activity. A London cinema was found at fault over a social media post about cancelling a Eurovision screening. The last of the 14, a students' union, was closed in September 2026 with advice to its trustees and no finding stated.

UKLFI does not tell its readers when a complaint fails. It never posted that the anti-poverty charity had been cleared, and it carries no post on the advice charity's case closing. After the Commission praised the medical charity's trustees, UKLFI's headline was "Charity Commission may need to 're-engage' with" the charity.

Twelve charities in one go

Twenty complaints have no published outcome. Twelve of them went in a single batch. In November 2024 a climate justice coalition marched over the climate crisis and the genocide in Gaza. UKLFI wrote to 12 charities in the coalition, most of them small climate, migrants' and racial justice groups, telling them that aligning with it was "outside their charitable objects and therefore illegal". When they did not answer, it reported all 12 to the Charity Commission. Caroline Turner, a UKLFI director, said that linking the climate to "a false accusation of Genocide against Israel appears nothing short of antisemitic".

Every one of those letters has to be answered by people who run charities, often unpaid. A children's theatre school, which gives free classes to children from low-income families, got an opinion from a King's Counsel after UKLFI accused it of harassment. The KC called the claim "wholly without merit".

Going after the money

UKLFI's best known result against a charity came outside the Commission. It says a British charity that sent aid to Palestinians lost its banking facilities after UKLFI wrote to its banks, and that the charity's income fell from £6.2 million in 2019 to £2.55 million in 2020. UKLFI's home page shows a quote from a "senior Israeli intelligence officer":

“Thanks to your continuous efforts you have achieved the goal that the State of Israel was trying to get since 1997”

senior Israeli intelligence officer, UK Lawyers for Israel home pageRead the originalArchived copy

A testimonial on UKLFI's home page reading Thanks to your continuous efforts you have achieved the goal that the State of Israel was trying to get since 1997, attributed to a senior Israeli intelligence officer.
UKLFI's home page. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 2.01am UK time.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginal

That is what UKLFI counts as success: an aid charity for Palestinians cut off from its bank, and thanks from Israeli intelligence.

Nobody can say how many

UKLFI publishes the complaints it wants seen, and some go in under other people's names. Two Freedom of Information requests asking the Charity Commission for the number were refused on cost. The Commission said it would need to "manually sift through all charity records because there is no specific marker in the Commission's systems with which we could use to run an automatic search for this information". Its whole caseload on the Middle East since October 2023, from every side, is "over 400 cases".

The Commission has not named anyone. But its chair, Dame Julia Unwin, wrote in its annual report this year that it "must also guard against being weaponised by those who seek to use our regulatory role as a way of undermining charities whose work they do not agree with". In December 2025 its interim chair, Mark Simms, said: "we refuse to be dragged into complaints that seek to weaponise the legitimate work of charities."

Where the threats work

Regulators take months and mostly find nothing. Hospitals, councils and colleges do not wait for a ruling. When a UKLFI letter warns of legal action, things come down.

In the NHS

From 2012, plates decorated with drawings by children at two schools in Gaza hung at the entrance to the children's outpatients department at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. In January 2023 UKLFI wrote to the hospital's chief executive. In February the plates came down. The trust told Middle East Eye the artwork "was removed following a letter to C&W HFT [Chelsea & Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust] suggesting legal action from the UKLFI [UK Lawyers for Israel]."

The hospital's own records show what the decision rested on. Asked under Freedom of Information, the trust said it did "not hold any correspondence or minutes of meetings regarding the decision to remove the display", apart from its own press statement and UKLFI's letter. It "received 230 complaints but again all these post dated the decision".

At Barts Health, UKLFI reported nurses wearing Palestine badges and, according to correspondence seen by Novara Media, told the trust it was "criminally liable", even though the nurses had given "excellent care". From 18 March 2025 Barts barred political symbols for all its staff, on desks and devices too. Barts says: "Neither UKLFI nor any other external organisation was involved in this internal process."

UKLFI says other trusts have changed their rules after its letters: Guy's and St Thomas' promised new guidance on lanyards and badges, Imperial College Healthcare reviewed its uniform policy, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough rewrote its badge guidance, and West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals told staff not to wear political slogans. These are UKLFI's accounts; we found no reply from the trusts.

Councils, colleges and exam boards

Tower Hamlets had left Palestinian flags on its lamp posts for months. UKLFI first wrote in January 2024. On 11 March it sent a letter before action saying the flags and the council's failure to remove them "have been and are illegal and indeed constitute criminal offences". Two days later the Mayor, Lutfur Rahman, announced they would come down. He said: "Although these flags are an understandable expression of solidarity, I now feel they are being used to unfairly attack the people of the borough and further the Islamophobic narrative."

Six weeks later the council removed murals of Palestinian journalists in Gaza after another UKLFI letter. The Mayor said: "Murals of Palestinian children, doctors & journalists murdered in Gaza should never be conflated with hate speech. I was not made aware of the removal of these murals and am urgently seeking clarification on how this happened." UKLFI says Birmingham, Camden, Edinburgh and Glasgow councils also took flags or posters down after its letters.

Pearson withdrew an International GCSE English paper whose extract described a surgeon operating on a child in Shifa Hospital in Gaza. UKLFI had told it the extract could distress "students who are supportive of Israel". A London adult education college cancelled a concert for Palestine after UKLFI warned it might breach the Terrorism Act. A community centre in Hertfordshire cancelled a kite-making workshop after UKLFI said kites recalled the paragliders of 7 October.

Where it failed

  • Ofcom rejected UKLFI's fairness complaint about a Channel 4 News report that showed its Charity Commission complaints: "Ofcom has not upheld UKLFI's complaint of unjust or unfair treatment in the programme as broadcast." Channel 4 had told Ofcom those complaints "were not upheld".
  • Dr Ghassan Abu-Sitta, the surgeon who operated on the wounded in Gaza's hospitals in 2023, was reported by UKLFI to the General Medical Council. A tribunal refused to suspend him in May 2024, and in January 2026 a full tribunal found the allegations not proved. The GMC has appealed.
  • Co-op members backed the motion UKLFI told the Co-op to reject or disregard: it passed with 73% in May 2025, and in June the Co-op said it would stop trading with Israel.

What UK Lawyers for Israel says about Gaza

On 2 May 2025 Jonathan Turner, UKLFI's chief executive, wrote to the Co-op Group to stop a motion at its annual meeting. The motion said a Lancet letter had estimated that at least 186,000 Gazans had died from the bombing, the destruction of health facilities and the denial of essential aid. UKLFI told the Co-op that the motion promoted "racial hatred of Israelis and Jews".

On the death toll:

“The letter also ignored factors that may increase average life expectancy in Gaza, bearing in mind that one of the biggest health issues in Gaza prior to the current war was obesity”

Jonathan Turner, chief executive, UK Lawyers for Israel, 2 May 2025Read the originalArchived copy

On the dead:

“Contrary to the misleading impression given by the motion, a large proportion of the Gazans killed, probably approaching half of them, were killed because they participated in armed combat with the Israeli forces.”

Jonathan Turner, chief executive, UK Lawyers for Israel, 2 May 2025Read the original

On the children:

“This corroborates the view that a considerable number of teenagers, classified as “children”, were killed because they were combatants.”

Jonathan Turner, chief executive, UK Lawyers for Israel, 2 May 2025Read the original

UK Lawyers for Israel's letter to the Co-op Group dated 2 May 2025. One paragraph says the Lancet letter ignored factors that may increase life expectancy in Gaza, because obesity was, in its words, one of the biggest health issues in Gaza "prior to the current war". Another says a considerable number of teenagers classified as children were killed because they were combatants.
UKLFI's letter to the Co-op Group, 2 May 2025, with paragraphs in between hidden. Downloaded from UKLFI's website on 27 October 2026.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginalArchived copy

The Guardian reported the letter on 10 May 2025. Turner did not take it back. He said the Lancet letter had "ignored factors that might result in lengthening the lives of Gazans, given the public health situation existing in Gaza prior to the war, including the extent of obesity. These factors include the possible reduction in the availability of confectionery and cigarettes." He added: "In the context in which they were made, our statements were accurate and objective."

That is the chief executive of the organisation now telling the Charity Commission which charities can be trusted to feed Gaza.

On starving civilians

UKLFI's registered charity published a briefing on siege on 3 December 2023, eight weeks into the genocide. It is still on the charity's website:

“Siege is a permissible means of warfare unless the intention is to starve the civilian population. As stated in the UK’s Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, “Siege is a legitimate method of warfare as long as it is directed against enemy armed forces.” Siege warfare can be more humane than other forms of warfare, such as bombardment, and can shorten a conflict. However, even if a siege results in the starvation of civilians, it is not prohibited by international law as long as the purpose is to achieve a military objective and not to starve the civilian population.”

UKLFI Charitable Trust, 3 December 2023Read the originalArchived copy

The same briefing says:

“There is no obligation on a State engaged in an armed conflict to supply food, fuel, electricity or medical supplies to a territory under enemy control.”

UKLFI Charitable Trust, 3 December 2023Read the original

UKLFI Charitable Trust's page A Briefing Note on Siege, Humanitarian Supplies and Evacuations, dated 3 December 2023, saying that even if a siege results in the starvation of civilians it is not prohibited by international law as long as the purpose is to achieve a military objective.
UKLFI Charitable Trust's briefing on siege, dated 3 December 2023. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 2.05am UK time.Source: UKLFI Charitable TrustOriginalArchived copy

On famine

In July 2024 the charity published a review of the famine reports. Its "conclusion is, happily, that there has been no famine in Gaza". In February 2025 it said again that "there has been no famine, as defined by IPC standards, in the Gaza Strip since October 2023".

UKLFI's post of 31 July 2024 saying UKLFI Charitable Trust has published a detailed review of reports on famine in Gaza, and the conclusion is, happily, that there has been no famine in Gaza.
UKLFI's post of 31 July 2024. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 2.06am UK time.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginalArchived copy

On 22 August 2025 the IPC, the UN-backed system UKLFI's review set out to test, confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, the first famine it has confirmed in the Middle East. In February 2026 UKLFI wrote to Pembrokeshire Council to stop it divesting from Israel, and said its letter "disputed claims of famine".

On the word genocide

In July 2025 MSF put up billboards in Wembley and Abbey Wood that read "WE'RE WITNESSING A GENOCIDE IN GAZA. WHEN WILL THE UK GOVERNMENT TAKE ACTION?". UKLFI wrote to the billboard owner, 75Media, that the words "amounted to misinformation", and warned they might break the Public Order Act, including its offence of stirring up racial hatred. 75Media paused the campaign. Caroline Turner, a UKLFI director, said:

“We are pleased that 75Media took prompt action to deal with this situation, and we commend their responsible approach.”

Caroline Turner, UK Lawyers for Israel, 16 July 2025Read the originalArchived copy

UKLFI's post MSF Genocide Adverts paused by Billboard Company, 16 July 2025, saying UKLFI wrote to 75Media explaining that the words on MSF's billboards amounted to misinformation.
UKLFI's post of 16 July 2025. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 2.06am UK time.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginalArchived copy

A year later UKLFI asked for MSF to be banned.

First MSF

In September 2026 UKLFI sent a dossier on MSF UK to the Charity Commission, the Fundraising Regulator and the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. The Telegraph reported that UKLFI "called on the Home Secretary to ban the charity in a manner akin to the proscription of Palestine Action". UKLFI told The National it had "submitted our evidence to the Home Secretary for consideration under the Terrorism Act".

Proscription is the power the government used against Hamas and Palestine Action. It makes it a crime to belong to a group or to invite support for it. MSF won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 and provides medical care in about 70 countries.

UKLFI's two main examples are MSF workers killed by Israeli occupation forces. Fadi al-Wadiya, a physiotherapist, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on 25 June 2024. After his death Israel said he was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and in February 2026 the group published a poster naming him as a commander. The second is an MSF driver whom Israel called a Hamas sniper after it had killed him. MSF said:

“If the Israeli authorities had any reliable information about Fadi’s involvement in military activity, they never shared it with MSF either prior to his killing or when we reached out immediately after he was killed to ask for clarifications around the circumstances of his death.”

Médecins Sans FrontièresRead the original

UKLFI's dossier goes further. It lists MSF's "cooperation with the Hamas-run Ministry of Health and the provision of medical supplies to that Ministry". That ministry runs Gaza's public hospitals. UKLFI is presenting medical supplies for Gaza's hospitals to a regulator as a terrorism concern.

UKLFI's post on its MSF report, saying Fadi al-Wadiya was killed in Gaza in June 2024 and that the report examines MSF's cooperation with the Hamas-run Ministry of Health and the provision of medical supplies to that Ministry.
UKLFI's post of 26 September 2026 on its MSF report. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 2.06am UK time.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginal

At least 15 MSF staff have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, and MSF has called for an investigation into the killing of its staff by Israeli occupation forces. Israel expelled MSF's international staff from Gaza this year. None of that was in the Telegraph's report of UKLFI's case on 26 September.

On 23 September the Commission told UKLFI it had opened a regulatory compliance case into MSF UK. MSF said: "We understand why the Charity Commission is engaging with us in relation to these allegations and we are cooperating fully. We are confident in the integrity of our processes."

How the press carried the MSF case

Who made the complaint

When the Charity Commission opened its case into MSF, we could read five of the reports that carried it. None put UK Lawyers for Israel in the headline.

How the reports of the Commission's MSF case named UK Lawyers for Israel

  • The Telegraph

    Date

    26 September 2026

    Headline

    Case opened against Doctors Without Borders over alleged Hamas links

    Where UKLFI is first named

    Paragraph 5 of 26
  • JNS

    Date

    28 September 2026

    Headline

    Médecins Sans Frontières under scrutiny by British commission for alleged terror ties in Gaza

    Where UKLFI is first named

    Standfirst
  • Civil Society

    Date

    29 September 2026

    Headline

    Commission assesses MSF UK's oversight of partner relationships

    Where UKLFI is first named

    Paragraph 2
  • The Jerusalem Post

    Date

    29 September 2026

    Headline

    UK authorities open investigation to MSF's links to terror groups in Gaza

    Where UKLFI is first named

    Standfirst
  • Jewish News

    Date

    29 September 2026

    Headline

    Charity Commission opens regulatory case into UK branch of Médecins Sans Frontières

    Where UKLFI is first named

    Standfirst

The Telegraph wrote four paragraphs about MSF's "alleged links to Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups" before it said who had made the allegations. Its third paragraph said, in the paper's own voice: "The allegations will be deeply embarrassing for the charity". UK Lawyers for Israel first appears in the fifth.

We read 11 reports on UKLFI's MSF case in full, from the Telegraph to Middle East Eye. Not one told readers how UKLFI's earlier complaints had ended: where the outcome is known, the regulator found nothing against the charity in 11 of 14.

The man at the centre of the MSF case

UKLFI's press release says al-Wadiya "was killed in Gaza in June 2024". It does not say who killed him. Three papers that ran UKLFI's wording did the same. Israel National News did not:

Who killed Fadi al-Wadiya?

The Telegraph, 26 September

“One of the most significant allegations involves Fadi Jihad Mohammed al-Wadiya, who worked as a physiotherapist, and was killed in Gaza in June 2024.”

The TelegraphRead the original

JNS, 28 September

“One case highlighted by UKLFI is that of Fadi Jihad Mohammed al-Wadiya, an MSF physiotherapist killed in Gaza in June 2024.”

JNSRead the original

Jerusalem Post, 29 September

“Prominent among the cited instances is Fadi Jihad Mohammed al-Wadiya, an MSF physiotherapist who was killed during a June 2024 airstrike in Gaza.”

The Jerusalem PostRead the original

Israel National News, 14 September

“Fadi Jihad Mohammed al-Wadiya, a physiotherapist who worked for MSF and was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in June 2024.”

Israel National NewsRead the original

Middle East Eye, Novara, The New Arab, Arab News and The National also said an Israeli strike killed him.

Whose words

The Telegraph's MSF report of 26 September and the press release UKLFI posted on its website the same day share most of their wording. Outside quotation marks, 53% of the Telegraph's words sit in runs of at least six words that are identical in UKLFI's release. One example:

UKLFI's press release

“UKLFI’s report identifies a number of individuals employed by MSF in Gaza who are alleged to have been members or operatives of terrorist organisations, or to have publicly glorified terrorist attacks and the organisations responsible for them.”

UK Lawyers for IsraelRead the original

The Telegraph

“Its report identified a number of individuals employed by MSF in Gaza who are alleged to have been members or operatives of terrorist organisations, or to have publicly glorified terrorist attacks and the organisations responsible for them.”

The TelegraphRead the original

Israel's case, filed in Britain

Put UKLFI's complaints next to what the Israeli state was saying at the time and they line up. Again and again, the evidence UKLFI hands to British regulators, banks and auditors is the Israeli state's own claim, and UKLFI says so: "identified by the Israeli authorities", "designated by Israel".

What the Israeli state said or did, and what UKLFI did next

What the Israeli state said or did, and what UKLFI did next
TargetThe Israeli stateUK Lawyers for Israel
A British aid charity for Palestinians6 May 1997: Israel's defence minister designates it.From 2019 UKLFI writes to the charity's banks and payment firms. The charity stops fundraising in 2021, and UKLFI's home page carries thanks from a "senior Israeli intelligence officer" for achieving "the goal that the State of Israel was trying to get since 1997".
A Palestinian health provider6 May 2021: Israel's Foreign Ministry posts a video accusing it of sending donors' money to the PFLP.The same day UKLFI sends it to the British medical charity that funded the provider. The charity stops the funding that day. The Charity Commission later told UKLFI the funding ended "following the allegations levied by the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs".
Two Palestinian farming and children's rights groups19 October 2021: Israel's defence minister designates them, with four other Palestinian civil society groups.In 2018 UKLFI wrote to their auditor, PwC, which replied that both were "undertaking legitimate humanitarian based activities". On 8 December 2021, after Israel's designation, UKLFI announced that PwC and EY had dropped them. Caroline Turner said "it appears that both of these accountancy firms have ditched their former clients".
The IPC's famine findings on Gaza29 May 2024: Israel's Foreign Ministry publishes a report attacking the IPC's March 2024 famine warning.31 July 2024: UKLFI's charity publishes a famine review, co-written by its executive director, saying the ministry's report "showed, with significant detail, that very little, if any, reliance could be placed on the findings of the Second IPC Report".
MSF31 December 2025: Israel's Diaspora Minister, Amichai Chikli, tells the media that one MSF employee was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative and another "was identified as a Hamas sniper". In February 2026 Israel bans MSF from working in Gaza.1 September 2026: UKLFI's dossier to the Commission and the Home Secretary names Fadi al-Wadiya, whom "the Israeli authorities identified" as an operative, and "a driver identified by the Israeli authorities as a Hamas sniper".

When the MSF dossier came out, Middle East Eye reported that "the allegations against MSF can be traced back to the Israeli government".

The Charity Commission has already told UKLFI that Israel's word is not British law. In 2019 UKLFI reported a small education charity because its trustees were designated in Israel. UKLFI's own post records the Commission's answer: because they were "not designated in the UK", the Commission was "not aware of any reason why these individuals cannot legally be trustees of a UK charity". Seven years later UKLFI's MSF dossier rested on staff "identified by the Israeli authorities".

The Israeli state on UKLFI's platform

UKLFI has worked with the Israeli state openly from the start. In 2014 its website said it had "organised a two-day seminar jointly with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israel Embassy in London in June 2012", and that a deputy Military Advocate-General of the Israeli army and the head of international law at Israel's Foreign Ministry had briefed its members in January 2013. The same page said what UKLFI does:

“We invoke laws and regulations to support Israel and oppose its enemies in a wide variety of fields and ways.”

UK Lawyers for Israel, Activities page, archived June 2014Read the original

The ties did not stop. In April 2022 UKLFI made Yifa Segal its International Director. She "was previously the Chief of Staff of the Ambassador of Israel to the United States", UKLFI said. In July 2022 the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, introduced one of the charity's webinars. The charity's website says it spoke at a 2016 conference "organized by the Israeli Embassy for leading pro-Israel activists on how best to invoke the law to combat anti-Israel activity".

On 3 April 2025, a month after Israel stopped all aid entering Gaza, the charity held a webinar called "Did Israel Starve Gaza Civilians?". The speaker was Hadassah Schwarz, an official of COGAT, the Israeli Ministry of Defence unit that controls aid into Gaza. She had worked for six years in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. The charity's legal director, Natasha Hausdorff, chaired it, and the charity listed it among its webinars in the trustees' report it filed with the Commission for 2025.

UKLFI's post Webinar, Did Israel Starve Gaza Civilians?, saying UKLFI Charitable Trust held the webinar with Hadassah Schwarz, chaired by Natasha Hausdorff, on 3 April 2025, and describing COGAT as a unit in the Israeli Ministry of Defence and the IDF which, since 7 October, is responsible for the humanitarian efforts in Gaza.
UKLFI's post on the charity's COGAT webinar, dated 31 March 2025. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 1.29pm UK time.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginal

An Israeli minister has said what that work is. On 21 April 2025 Miri Regev, the minister in charge of Israel's Independence Day events, chose Hausdorff to light a torch at the state ceremony on Mount Herzl. UKLFI's charity published what Regev said:

“Attorney Hausdorff, a member of the British Jewish community and an expert in international law, has been at the forefront of legal advocacy in the world in recent years. She successfully represents Israel against all parties who attempt to challenge the righteousness of its path and its right to defend itself.”

Miri Regev, Israeli minister, UK Lawyers for Israel, 21 April 2025Read the original

Hausdorff said she owed the honour to UKLFI and would "forever be grateful to them for all they do for Israel". The charity's YouTube channel titled the video "Natasha Hausdorff lights a torch in the name of UKLFI on Israel's 77th Independence Day".

UKLFI's post of 21 April 2025, Natasha Hausdorff selected to light torch on Israel's Independence Day, quoting Minister Miri Regev saying she successfully represents Israel, and Hausdorff saying she will forever be grateful to UKLFI for all they do for Israel.
UKLFI's post of 21 April 2025. Captured on 27 October 2026 at 1.29pm UK time.Source: UK Lawyers for IsraelOriginal

In 2024 Middle East Eye reported a leaked Israeli Ministry of Justice note of a meeting on 2 September 2019. It said the Turners met Marlene Mazel, a senior justice ministry official, while UKLFI faced legal action from a British aid charity and a Palestinian children's rights group, and asked for "assistance in finding or validating evidence that will help them". Turner told MEE: "We cannot now recall whether we met Attorney Marlene Mazel on 2 September 2019."

He also told MEE: "We are an independent organisation and are not linked to the Israeli government." An Israeli minister says UKLFI's legal director "successfully represents Israel".

Why Israel is a hostile state

The Charity Commission knows foreign states use charities. In March 2026 the government told the House of Lords that the Commission's own risk assessment warns "hostile foreign states may seek to gain influence in the UK by using charities as a vehicle for promoting their worldview". The Commission has three statutory inquiries open into charities with alleged links to a foreign state. All three are about Iran.

A hostile state is not a list of enemies. British law judges a state by what it does: Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 calls an act done for any foreign state a "hostile act" if it threatens national security or is a serious crime. This is what the Israeli state has done:

  • Britain found it misused British passports for a killing. In 2010 the Foreign Secretary told Parliament there were "compelling reasons" to believe Israel was responsible for the misuse of British passports in an assassination in Dubai, and expelled an Israeli diplomat. Britain had expelled another in 1988 over Mossad activity in Britain.
  • Its embassy plotted against a British minister. In 2017 a member of staff at Israel's London embassy was filmed saying he wanted to "take down" a Foreign Office minister, Alan Duncan. The ambassador apologised.
  • It killed British aid workers. In April 2024 Israeli occupation forces killed John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby in strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza. Britain summoned Israel's ambassador.
  • It detained British MPs. In April 2025 Israel detained Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang at the airport and deported them. The Foreign Secretary called it "unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning".
  • Britain has acted against it. In September 2024 Britain suspended about 30 arms export licences to Israel over the risk of serious breaches of international humanitarian law. In June 2025 it sanctioned two serving Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for "repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities".
  • Its prime minister is wanted for starving Gaza. In November 2024 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, finding reasonable grounds to believe he bears criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare. Britain is a member of the court and is bound to arrest him if he comes here.
  • It punishes aid groups for what they say. Israel's rules for aid groups in Gaza, enforced from the start of 2026, disqualify groups that have called for boycotts of Israel or backed international court cases against its soldiers or leaders. Israel revoked the licences of 37 aid groups, MSF among them.

That is a hostile state. An official of its Ministry of Defence gave the webinar on UKLFI's charity's platform asking whether Israel starved Gaza, the war crime its prime minister is wanted for. Its minister says the charity's legal director "successfully represents Israel". And UKLFI goes after British organisations on the grounds Israel uses to bar aid groups: it reported a Scottish cinema to the regulator for boycotting Coca-Cola and Israeli goods, and it got MSF's genocide billboards paused.

The Commission is investigating three charities over links to Iran. It has not said whether a charity that gives Israel's Ministry of Defence its platform raises the same concern, and it keeps opening cases on UK Lawyers for Israel's complaints. One standard for Iran. Another for Israel.

When UKLFI reports an aid charity to the Charity Commission, the regulator is often hearing the Israeli state's case against the people feeding and treating Gaza, from a group that calls itself independent.

UKLFI's own charity

UK Lawyers for Israel is two organisations. UKLFI Limited is a company set up in 2010 under the name Action 4 Peace Limited, and registered at Companies House under "Activities of political organisations". UKLFI Charitable Trust is a charity, registered in 2016 under number 1169041.

The company says what it is for: "We employ advocacy, legal research and campaigning to support Israel, Israeli organisations, Israelis, and/or supporters of Israel against BDS and other attempts to undermine, attack or delegitimise them." One of its objects is "to contribute generally as lawyers to creating a supportive climate of opinion in the United Kingdom towards Israel". It names its first success as "obtaining the arrest by Greek police of a flotilla of ships intended to sail to Gaza circumventing Israeli restrictions on the transfer of materials to terrorists".

Jonathan Turner is its chief executive. UKLFI says Caroline Turner, a director, "specialises in investigating organisations and charities with links to terrorism, and in preventing their funding". Its patrons include Lord Pannick, Lord Grabiner, Lord Dyson and Baroness Deech. Lord Carlile resigned as a patron in September 2024 after backing the government's suspension of arms export licences to Israel.

The charity says it is separate from the company, which set it up "to facilitate fund raising from UK donors for parts of its activities that are charitable under UK law". In 2025 the company charged the charity £281,851 "in connection with shared staff and other support costs", out of £476,320 the charity spent. The charity's accounts say Caroline and Jonathan Turner were employed by the company, "but in reality the employment was shared between UKLFI Ltd and the Charity".

UKLFI Charitable Trust's income and spending

From the charity's accounts and the Charity Commission register. We found no figures for 2019.

See the figures
YearIncomeSpending
201751,90233,910
201868,88864,239
202054,51762,401
202170,61142,371
2022105,28287,819
2023228,328105,278
2024586,462286,158
2025831,720476,320

The charity's income went from £70,611 in 2021 to £831,720 in 2025. Its accounts from 2017 to 2025 do not name one donor. Its 2025 report says: "A number of donors urged the Charity to increase the scale of its activities." Two American foundations list UKLFI among the causes they back: the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the MERONA Leadership Foundation, whose mission includes "funding for pro-Israel initiatives".

In May 2025 the campaign group CAGE complained to the Commission about UKLFI's charity. In July 2025 a Commission spokesperson told Middle East Eye:

“We can confirm that we already have an active case open into UKLFI Charitable Trust ... Further concerns have been raised with us about the charity, which we will assess as part of the case to determine what, if any, role there is for us as regulator.”

Charity Commission, to Middle East Eye, July 2025Read the original

Middle East Eye reported that the case is about the charity's relationship with UKLFI's company, which the Commission does not regulate. The charity's 2025 report says it has been "engaging with the Charity Commission since late 2023", including over "various complaints made to the Charity Commission by others", and that "the complaints of which the Charity is aware are not well-founded". Fifteen months after the Commission confirmed its case, it has published no outcome.

In August 2025 the Solicitors Regulation Authority said it was "looking into" a complaint about UKLFI from the Public Interest Law Centre and the European Legal Support Centre. UKLFI says it "has not conducted any activity that can be described as a SLAPP".

How to take this further

MSF treats people in Gaza. UK Lawyers for Israel told the public that a siege which starves civilians can be lawful, that there was no famine in Gaza, and that Gaza's death toll ignored obesity. Its complaints to the regulators mostly fail. Its letters still take children's art off a hospital wall.

How we did this

How we did this

We read UKLFI's 840 posts from 2018 to October 2026, its archived pages, the accounts of its company and its charity, the regulators' published decisions and statements, and the charities' own replies. We counted a complaint when UKLFI said it had made one, or helped someone else make one, to a regulator. We left out two charities whose cases are open, and we describe every charity except MSF by type. Where an outcome rests only on UKLFI's own account, we say so. For the press section we read in full every report of UKLFI's MSF case we could reach: 11, with four more behind paywalls or blocked to us and one we could read only in part. The shared-wording figure counts the Telegraph's words outside quotation marks that fall inside a run of six or more consecutive words also found in UKLFI's release. AI tools helped us collect and code the material; we checked every figure and quotation in this piece against its source.

The data

Sources: UK Lawyers for Israel, posts and achievements pages 2018 to 2026, letter to the Co-op Group, 2 May 2025, MSF post, 26 September 2026, Tower Hamlets post, 13 March 2024, Pearson post, 28 May 2025, and Natasha Hausdorff's torch, 21 April 2025; UKLFI Charitable Trust, briefing on siege, 3 December 2023, famine review, 31 July 2024, accounts 2017 to 2025; Charity Commission, annual report 2025 to 2026 and interim chair's speech, 9 December 2025; Information Commissioner, decision notice IC-254407-H6N9, 5 February 2024; House of Lords written answer HL15711, 30 March 2026; Israel's Ministry of Defence designation lists; Jerusalem Post, on Amichai Chikli's allegations against MSF, 1 January 2026; Middle East Eye, 2023, 2024, July 2025 and 16 September 2026; Novara Media, July 2025; Tower Hamlets Slice, March 2024; TFN, March 2025; al-bab, December 2024; The Telegraph, 26 September 2026; JNS, 28 September 2026; Civil Society, the Jerusalem Post and Jewish News, 29 September 2026; The Guardian, 10 May 2025.