Ministers face livid backlash over curbs on Israel arms exports
Ministers are facing a furious backlash today after ‘appeasing the hard Left’ by announcing curbs on arms exports to Israel.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy dramatically declared last night that around 30 licences had been suspended citing a ‘clear risk’ that the kit could be used to breach international humanitarian law.
But the ‘disheartening’ move – days after the deaths of six hostages – was slated by Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, while former PM Boris Johnson questioned this morning whether Labour ‘want Hamas to win’.
Defence Secretary John Healey has been touring broadcast studios as he tries to cool anger, insisting the restrictions ‘will not have a material impact on Israel’s security’.
Mr Healey said he informed Mr Gallant personally about the suspensions in advance.
‘We have a duty to follow the law, but this does not alter our unshakable commitment to support Israel’s right to self-defence and to the defence of Israel if it comes under direct attack again, just as UK jets back in April helped intercept Iranian drones and missiles that were targeted directly at Israeli civilians,’ he told Times Radio.
Wreckage in the aftermath of a strike on Gaza yesterday
Defence Secretary John Healey has been touring broadcast studios as he tries to cool anger, insisting the restrictions ‘ will not have a material impact on Israel’s security’.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy dramatically declared last night that around 30 licences had been suspended citing a ‘clear risk’ that the kit could be used to breach international humanitarian law
Former PM Boris Johnson questioned this morning whether Labour ‘want Hamas to win’
Mr Healey said Mr Gallant ‘found the call unwelcome’ but ‘sometimes your closest friends are the ones that need to tell the hardest truths’.
The government is also braced for a response from the US, where politics was largely on hold yesterday for Labor Day.
Mr Lammy said a review conducted by the UK Government could not ‘arbitrate on whether or not Israel has breached international humanitarian law’ in Gaza, but ministers have a legal duty to review export licences.
Factors key to the Government’s decision include ‘insufficient’ humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and reports of the mistreatment of detainees, a summary of the process undertaken by ministers revealed.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Lammy said there was a ‘clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law’ based on an assessment he had received, adding there was no choice but to halt some arms exports.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, in a written ministerial statement, said the suspension included ‘components for fighter aircraft (F-16s), parts for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), naval systems, and targeting equipment’.
Summary papers published by the Government said ‘Israel has not fulfilled its duty as Occupying Power to ensure – to the fullest extent of the means available to it – those supplies essential to the survival of the population of Gaza’.
‘It has concluded that the level of aid remains insufficient,’ the document said.
It also said there ‘have been credible claims of the mistreatment of detainees’ at a ‘volume and consistency’ which suggest ‘at least some instances of mistreatment contrary to IHL’ (international humanitarian law).
The Government suggested however, that it had not been possible to come to a ‘determinative judgement’ on ‘allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities’, partly because of the ‘opaque and contested information environment in Gaza’.
Mr Gallant wrote on X: ‘Deeply disheartened to learn of the sanctions placed by the UK Government on export licenses to Israel’s defence establishment.
‘This comes at a time when we fight a war on seven different fronts – a war that was launched by a savage terrorist organization, unprovoked.’
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been under mounting pressure over his handling of the response to Hamas’s terror attack in October
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis posted on X that the decision ‘beggars belief’
‘At a time when we mourn six hostages who were executed in cold blood by Hamas inside tunnels in Gaza. At a time when we fight to bring 101 hostages home,’ he said.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis posted on X that the decision ‘beggars belief’ while ‘Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on October 7, and at the very moment when six hostages murdered in cold blood by cruel terrorists were being buried by their families’.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell said the decision has ‘all the appearance of something designed to satisfy Labour’s backbenches, while at the same time not offending Israel, an ally in the Middle East. I fear it will fail on both counts’.
Tory leader contender Robert Jenrick went further, describing it as ‘shameful gesture politics to appease the hard left’.
But former British diplomat and national security adviser Lord Peter Ricketts said the Government’s decision was made to protect the ‘integrity’ of the UK’s arms export system.
Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘They’ve been very careful, I think.
‘They’ve gone into this thoroughly, and they’ve concluded that although they can’t pin individual weapons systems to individual acts in Gaza – because there aren’t the number of observers on the ground to see it – they’ve reached a conclusion that there are certain weapons where there is a clear risk that if they were supplied, they would be used in a way that breaches international humanitarian law.
‘And that is one of the conditions in the licenses that we serve to all countries that get British arms.
‘So I think their move is about the integrity of the arms export system, rather than any hope that it might change Netanyahu’s mind, which it clearly won’t.’
