UK says Israel ‘could do more to ensure life-saving food and medical supplies reach civilians in Gaza’
Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, said Israel could be doing more to ensure “life-saving food and medical supplies” reach civilians in Gaza.
Israel’s actions in Gaza “continue to lead to immense loss of civilian life, widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure, and immense suffering,” Lammy told the Commons.
It is the assessment of His Majesty’s Government that Israel could recently do more to ensure life-saving food and medical supplies reach civilians in Gaza, in light of the appalling humanitarian situation.
He added that the UK is also “deeply concerned by credible claims of mistreatment of detainees”, which he said the International Committee of the Red Cross had not been able to investigate “after being denied access to places of detention.” Lammy added:
Both my predecessor and all our major allies have repeatedly and forcefully raised these concerns with the Israeli government. Regrettably, they have not been addressed satisfactorily.
Key events
Thousands of people are protesting outside the home of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem.
Israeli police have blocked the end of the street and have deployed large forces, including mounted police, to the area of the demonstration, according to Haaretz.
Protesters carried coffins wrapped in the Israeli flag, as a sign of solidarity with the six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Israeli forces in Gaza over the weekend, the outlet reported.
Hundreds of protesters have also gathered in Caesarea, near Netanyahu’s private residence, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said he was “deeply disheartened” about the UK government’s decision to immediately suspend 30 arms export licences to Israel.
Deeply disheartened to learn of the sanctions placed by the U.K. Government on export licenses to Israel’s defense establishment. This comes at a time when we fight a war on 7 different fronts – a war that was launched by a savage terrorist organization, unprovoked. At a time…
— יואב גלנט – Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) September 2, 2024
US president Joe Biden has shared a photo on X of him and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, meeting with the US hostage deal negotiation team.
As we reported earlier, Biden “expressed his devastation and outrage” after the bodies of six hostages, including an Israeli-American citizen, were recovered by Israel, according to the White House.
Today, @VP and I met in the Situation Room with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team following the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas.
We are devastated and outraged. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.
We also discussed next… pic.twitter.com/5aLADss2CS
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 2, 2024
Israel ‘disappointed’ by UK decision to suspend some arms export licences
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said his country was “disappointed by a series of decisions” made by the UK government after the announcement that it was suspending 30 arms export licences to Israel.
Katz said the move “sends a very problematic message” to Hamas and its patrons in Iran, Reuters reported.
Aid groups say UK arms export suspension to Israel ‘woefully inadequate’
ActionAid UK has called on the UK government to suspend all arms licenses to Israel, warning that it is “at risk of being complicit in the atrocities taking place in Gaza daily.”
A statement from Hannah Bond, co-CEO of ActionAid UK, reads:
Now is not the time for half measures: if the UK government believes the Israeli military may be breaching international humanitarian law in Gaza, then it should go much further and halt all new and existing arms licenses to the Israeli government immediately.
Care International’’s head of advocacy and policy, Israel Dorothy Sang, said in a statement that the UK government’s announcement to suspend 30 out of 350 arms licenses to Israel was a “welcome improvement” but “woefully inadequate”.
It is unconscionable that British-made weapons could be used in breach of international law in Gaza. The Government must now publish the legal advice it has used to reach this decision, in its entirety. Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and there remains no safe place in Gaza. We urge the Government to go further, and suspend all arms export licenses to Israel in their entirety.
The US president, Joe Biden, and vice-president Kamala Harris met with the US hostage deal negotiation team on Monday after the bodies of six hostages were recovered by Israel.
Biden “expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder, and reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable,” a statement from the White House said.
The bodies of six people kidnapped alive by Hamas and found in a tunnel in Rafah included Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen.
The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said not enough aid lorries are getting into Gaza and that he had raised his concerns directly with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lammy told the Commons:
Successive foreign secretaries have now raised it with the Israelis, and I raised it directly with prime minister Netanyahu, but not enough trucks are getting in, and it is still the case today after 11 months of conflict that not enough trucks are getting in.
The development non governmental organisation Global Justice Now has called the UK’s decision to suspend 30 of its 350 arms export licences with Israel a “half-baked ban” which “risks maintaining UK complicity in war crimes”.
A statement from Tim Bierley, a campaigner at Global Justice Now, reads:
Under huge pressure the government is waking up to the fact that it must stop arming Israel. But this is a half-baked ban which risks maintaining UK complicity in war crimes. You wouldn’t deal with a dangerous arsonist by simply reducing their petrol supply.
This announcement doesn’t go nearly far enough. Britain is still providing military goods to a government accused of genocide. That position is morally reprehensible, and has very little support from the British public. We must push on for a full and complete arms embargo.
Patrick Wintour
The UK government is also facing a growing range of domestic court challenges, including proceedings due to start on Tuesday.
UK officials were reluctant to link the 30 suspended arms export licences to Israel to specific breaches of international humanitarian law but pointed out that the government had been in so far fruitless negotiation with the Israeli government to gain access to Palestinian detainees either through British judicial figures or the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Ministers were eager to emphasise that the suspension did not represent a step away from the UK’s commitment to Israel’s security and pointed out that such suspensions had occurred in previous Israeli conflicts.
Suspension decisions were endorsed by Margaret Thatcher in 1982, Gordon Brown in 2009 and under the coalition government in 2014. Arms export licences were also suspended to Egypt in 2013 and Russia in 2014.
The UK foreign secretary David Lammy, speaking to the Commons, said the decision to immediately suspend 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel was “not a blanket ban, this is not an arms embargo”.
The decision would not have a “material impact on Israel’s security”, Lammy said.
This suspension only covers items which might be used in the current conflict.
“We do not take this decision lightly,” he added.