The UK government is being sued by rights organizations and NGOs on Tuesday, alleging that it broke international laws by providing fighter aircraft parts to Israel in the middle of the Gaza battle. The Arab rights group Al-Haq is attempting to stop the government’s trade of UK-made parts for Lockheed Martin F-35 warrior planes, according to Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, and others. Israel has used British warplanes in Gaza and the West Bank to devastate the country, and Amnesty UK’s scalp claimed that Britain had breached its “legal responsibility… to prevent murder” by allowing the import of crucial parts to Israel. According to Oxfam, the plane’s refueling sensor, light targeting system, tyres, back fuselage, fan propulsion system, and ejector seat are both made in Britain, and Al-Haq’s defense claimed the aircraft” could hardly maintain flying without constant supply of UK-made components.” When a choice could be made following the latest step in a long-running lawful struggle, the four-day reading at London’s High Court, is unclear. The Global Action Legal Network ( GLAN ) members have claimed that they first filed the case shortly after Israel’s assault on Gaza was sparked by the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023. Israel has consistently refuted claims of genocide. The professionals claimed that the UK government had made the decision to continue selling arms to Israel in December 2023 and April and May 2024, before suspending permits for weapons that the Israeli military in Gaza had determined to use for military purposes in September 2024. After a review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian rules, the new Labour government suspended about 30 licenses, but the limited restrictions did not apply to British-made components for the cutting-edge F-35 cunning fighter jets. Due to its strategic position in NATO and its wider effects on global peace and security, a UK state official told AFP that it was” not currently possible to dismiss the licensing of F-35 parts for use by Israel without prejudicing the whole world F-35 program.” We suspended related IDF licenses that could be used to undertake or facilitate grave violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza within a few months of taking office, according to them.
“UK hardly a witness”
The government reaffirmed that it had “acted in a manner that was in line with our constitutional obligations” and that it was” committed to upholding our obligations under international and domestic law.” However, GLAN called the F-35 deduction a “loophole” that allowed the components to directly reach Israel through a worldwide pooling system. F-35s being used to cut “multi-ton weapons on the individuals of Gaza,” according to Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a prosecutor for GLAN, at a lecture last year. According to an AFP tally based on official statistics, Hamas’s 2023 assault on southern Israel left 1,218 people dead, most of whom were civilians. Since Israel ended a two-month peace in mid-March, according to the health department in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 2, 749 people have died nevertheless, or 862, according to a report from the health department in Gaza on Monday. According to Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Amnesty International UK,” the UK has a distinct legal obligation to do everything in its power to prevent genocide.” Despite all the proof that Israel is killing the Arab citizens in Gaza, the UK authorities continues to permit the export of military technology to Israel. The UK has fundamentally broken its obligations, according to Al-Haq’s public director Shawan Jabarin. It is implicated, and it needs to be exposed, confronted, and held accountable for it.
