A group of Palestinian families is attempting to have Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, prosecuted in Britain for alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip, lawyers have told Al Jazeera.

A lawyer working for the families will present their case at a magistrates court in London on Tuesday before British officials decide if it has the jurisdiction to decide the case.
Barak is due in Britain on Tuesday to address a meeting of the Labour Friends of Israel on the sidelines of the ruling party's annual conference. The families hope that an arrest warrant will be issued during his visit.

Michel Massih, the UK-based lawyer taking the case to court, said that he believed that the British government was obliged "to actively pursue people who are alleged to be involved in war crimes".
"One does not need, at this stage, to provide more than a basic prima face case and the suggestion would be that Barak certainly was in a position where he has to answer some of the allegations made about the commission of crimes by Israeli troops," he told Al Jazeera from London.

More than 1,400 Palestinians, at least one-third of them women and children, were killed in Israel's December-January offensive in the Gaza Strip.