“There is no normal life for us any more. We barely get by,” says Saleh Hasan, 60, a labourer living in Bethlehem and one of a number of Palestinians hoping to bring a legal action in the UK courts against the British Government.

They claim that they have lost their livelihoods, in the words of their UK lawyer, “as a result of the Israeli oppression and, in particular, the building of the Israeli partition wall”. Public Interest Lawyers, the Birmingham firm, argues, on the group’s behalf, that the sale of military equipment to Israel, including parts for Apache helicopters, breaches guidelines on arms exports and contributes to the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Hasan, who is receiving legal aid, has this month been given a date for his hearing which will take place in London in October.

In Hasan’s case the 30ft wall has separated his family from two acres of land they farm. “Land has been passed down generations from my father’s father,” he explains from his home in Bethlehem through an interpreter provided by Al-Haq, the Palestinian human rights group. “Even before 1948 our family used that land,” he continues. “We would plant vegetables, work on it and live off this land. We are left with nothing.’ On April 15, 2005, Hasan discovered a note pinned to a tree confiscating the property. “We weren’t allowed to go on to it. It said that it was abandoned property and available for Israel.”

The legal action in Hasan’s name will shine a light on the EU’s consolidated criteria (secondary legislation incorporating UK and EU policy) which requires that an export licence will not be issued if there is a clear risk that the export may be used for internal repression or international aggression. Phil Shiner, head of Public Interest Lawyers, points to the evidence given by Kim Howells, a Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister, to a Parliamentary select committee in April last year. The minister said: “No weapons, equipment or components which could be deployed aggressively in the occupied territories would be licensed for export from the UK to Israel . . . I can imagine . . . almost any piece of equipment, I suppose, could be used aggressively, especially in occupied areas, there is no question about that.”

Shiner says that the heart of the case “is whether our Government is meeting its own criteria about what it can and cannot do in terms of arms exports where there is a risk of internal repression in another country”. The Government last year approved £22.5 million of arms-related exports to Israel, almost twice the 2004 figure. “There is clear evidence linking arms exports from the UK to human rights violations,” Shiner says.

Pressure groups such as Campaign Against the Arms Trade and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign supporting the case. “The fact that some of the tanks daily bombing and shelling Palestinian towns carry parts and components that are being made in British factories is quite horrifying,” Betty Hunter, of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, says.

To what extent are Saleh Hasan and his neighbours aware of the UK’s alleged contribution to the conflict? “We hear a lot of reports and we know that help for Israel comes primarily from the US and the UK,” he replies. “The people do not know what their government is doing. British people are good people and I have met them here and they want to help Palestinian people. The British people like peace but the British Government, no, they do not like peace.”

Shiner has visited Hasan and his family. “It was desperate,” he recalls. “I had no idea how these people lived. They clearly had very little money but were movingly generous and served out masses of Palestinian bread, like chapattis. In terms of our society, I guess they would not be many rungs up from homeless.” The solicitor believes that the granting of public funding in the case demonstrates that the legal aid system is working. “It proves that we have a thriving democracy when public money is spent on cases of constitutional importance like this,” he says.

A spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said that the action was receiving legal aid “as a test case as it has far wider implications than just for Mr Hasan”. “The fact that applicants may live abroad is not a factor under the legal aid scheme,” he said. “The key is whether the case involves issues of English law and will be tried in this jurisdiction.”

And what does Hasan make of his role? He believes that it is appropriate. “Without British involvement, the Palestinian problems would never have started,” he says. “You are in a position where you claim to be a land of great rights and individual freedoms and your courts will help to bring justice to individuals even though they live in Palestine.”