UK continuing to send arms to Israel despite ban

A wide range of UK-made military goods and arms, including F-35 fighter jet parts, have continued to be sent to Israel even after the British government suspended 30 arms export licences in September, Israeli import data revealed in a report on Wednesday suggests.

The report released by three campaign groups says parts for the jet, which has been critical for Israel’s war on Gaza, appear to have arrived in Israel as recently as March, five months after the UK said it had suspended its direct exports over concerns they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Data from the Israeli Tax Authority cited by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Workers for a Free Palestine and Progressive International shows that 8,630 separate munitions have been sent from the UK to Israel since the suspensions.

The munitions fall under a category of import labelled “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and parts thereof”. 

Most of the shipments cited in the report happened after the government’s arms suspension.

Soon after the suspensions, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told parliament that “much of what we send is defensive in nature. It is not what we describe routinely as arms”.

The report’s authors write: “On the basis of the evidence in this report, it appears that David Lammy has misled parliament and the public about arms shipments to Israel.”

The UK’s Department for Business and Trade did not respond to a request for comment.

A Foreign Office spokesperson told The Guardian: “This government has suspended relevant licences for the [Israeli Defence Forces] that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

“Of the remaining licences for Israel, the vast majority are not for the Israeli Defence Forces but are for civilian purposes or re-export, and therefore are not used in the war in Gaza.

“The only exemption is the F-35 programme due to its strategic role in Nato and wider implications for international peace and security. Any suggestion that the UK is licensing other weapons for use by Israel in the war in Gaza is misleading.

“The UK totally opposes an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. We urge all parties to return urgently to talks, implement the ceasefire agreement in full, secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas, and work towards a permanent peace.”

Calls for investigation 

In response to the study, nearly two dozen MPs have written to Lammy, calling on him to come before parliament to respond to the allegations.

“We urge the government to disclose the details of all arms exports to Israel since October 2023 and to immediately halt all arms exports to Israel,” they wrote. 

“This could not be more urgent given the risk that British-made weapons could be used to enact Netanyahu’s plan to annex Gaza and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people.”

They said that the public “deserves to know the full scale of the UK’s complicity in crimes against humanity”.

Former Labour shadow chancellor and MP John McDonnell and MP Zarah Sultana, who signed the letter, are also calling on the prime minister to launch an investigation into whether ministers misled parliament and the public and make it clear that if the ministerial code has been breached, they must resign.

“If parliament has been misled by the foreign secretary or any minister it is a resigning matter and more importantly it attracts potentially a charge of complicity in war crimes,” McDonnell said.

Sultana said the findings showed the government “has been lying to us about the arms it is supplying to Israel while it wages genocide in Gaza”.

“Far from ‘helmets and goggles’, the government has been sending thousands of arms and ammunition goods and [is] even still supplying components of the world’s most lethal fighter jets,” she said.

The report’s release comes a week before the government is set to return to the High Court to face a legal challenge, brought by Palestinian rights group Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network, to its arms exports to Israel.

Over a year into the judicial review, the case has most recently focused on the government’s decision to continue sending UK-made F-35 parts to Israel through third countries.

Emily Apple, media coordinator for the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade, which has been supporting the judicial review, said the report had shattered the claim, made by successive governments, that the UK arms export regime is robust and transparent.

“Our arms export regime is not fit for purpose and this government is complicit in Israel’s horrific war crimes. Time and again it has either refused to act or manufactured loopholes to prioritise arms trade profits over Palestinian lives. This has to stop,” Apple said.

“And if this government refuses to stop, it is down to all of us to take action to end the UK’s role in Israel’s genocide.”