British-Israeli reservist photographed at burning Gaza school, UN investigator calls for Met Police probe

A photograph on a private Instagram account shows a man in Israeli military uniform standing in front of a burning school in Gaza. An investigation by Declassified UK names him as Jonathan Burman, a British citizen who grew up in Manchester, spent a gap year in Israel, and later joined the Israeli army.

The film, published Tuesday under the title "We Exposed a British-Israeli Who Fought in Gaza," traces the building in the photo to Madrasa al-Farabi, a school in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis. The tracing was done by Airwars, a conflict-monitoring group that cross-referenced the image against satellite and ground documentation from the area.

Asked for comment, the Israeli military sent Declassified a statement from December 2023 saying it had eliminated a "terrorist cell" inside a school that day. Airwars found that statement referred to a different school, roughly two kilometers from the one in Burman's photo.

The Israeli military confirmed to Declassified that Burman served in the 55th Brigade, an elite paratrooper reserve unit. The film's researchers believe, based on further posts, that he served specifically in the brigade's 66th Battalion. Other images from Burman's account reviewed by Declassified show him in Khan Younis with heavy destruction visible behind him, as well as photos from deployment in Lebanon.

Yuval Green, who served as a medic in the 66th Battalion, told Declassified that ideology shaped how some soldiers approached the fighting in Gaza.

"Some of the people are really driven by crazy insane religious ideas. This was just an opportunity for them to kill as many Gazans as they can and kick them out and get their lands."

The Hind Rajab Foundation, an open-source research group, separately identified a unit it believes Burman "likely" served with, describing it as responsible for close combat fighting and the demolition of residential buildings across Khan Younis.

Chris Sidoti, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, appears in the film and endorses the investigative method used to build the case.

"You are not saying that this person is guilty of war crimes, but the evidence is sufficient to warrant further investigation."

Sidoti said Britain's Metropolitan Police war crimes unit should open an inquiry into Burman specifically. Burman did not respond to Declassified's requests for comment.

The case lands against a backdrop of institutional inaction. In April, the Met announced it would not pursue cases against ten British nationals accused of war crimes while serving with the Israeli military in Gaza, after the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and the Public Interest Law Centre submitted a 240-page dossier the previous year. The Met cited no realistic prospect of conviction. An estimated 2,000 British-Israeli dual nationals are believed to have served in the Israeli military during the war, which a UN commission found last year amounted to genocide.