END THE GENOCIDE - THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT MUST END ITS COMPLICITY IN THE SLAUGHTER IN GAZA - STOP ARMING ISRAEL

On his first day in Office, Foreign Secretary David Lammy initiated a review, to assess whether Israel was complying with international humanitarian law.

That was nearly 50 days ago. In the 321 days of the Israeli onslaught on the people of Gaza more than 40,000 people have been killed, including 16,000 children: a rate of over 120 deaths per day.

In the past week alone, Israel’s ground invasion of Khan Younis has killed dozens of Palestinians, displacing 190,000 people. The indiscriminate killing continues, including the horrific attack on a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City which killed more than 100 people. In the occupied West Bank, Israel continues its military invasions and assassinations of Palestinians and has reduced the water supply for Palestinians by 40%, using thirst as a weapon of ethnic cleansing. At least 635 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 2023.

While David Lammy was visiting the Middle East, Mark Smith, a senior British diplomat, resigned from his post claiming that Britain could be complicit in war crimes. 

The Labour government’s delay in making a decision on whether to stop arms exports to Israel is totally unacceptable. It is at odds with Britain’s moral and legal responsibility not to render aid and assistance to Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip, its unlawful military occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and its regime of apartheid against all Palestinians.

The British arms industry manufactures some 15% of every F-35 fighter jet that Israel uses in its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has armed these jets with 2,000lb bombs, explosives with a lethal radius of up to 365m. A UN report found that these bombs have been used in ’emblematic’ cases of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Gaza.

The government’s own Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, under which all arms exports are assessed, states that export licences should not be issued if there is a “clear risk” arms exports might be used in a “serious violation of international humanitarian law”. The Arms Trade Treaty, to which Britain is a State Party, outlines that a State must not export arms if there is “potential” that they could be used to commit violations of international human rights or humanitarian law. It is inconceivable that —after over 75 years of Israel’s regime of apartheid, 57 years of illegal military occupation, and 10 months of Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza, with more than 40,000 killed— the British government’s legal advice has concluded that such a risk does not exist.

In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court, found it plausible that Israel is breaching the Genocide Convention in its assault on Palestinians in Gaza; Israel has ignored the binding interim measures adopted by the Court. In a separate opinion issued last week, the ICJ ruled that Israel must end its illegal military occupation of Palestinian land.

In April, the UN Human Rights Council called on all states “to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel” as an urgent measure to prevent further violations of international law. In June, UN experts announced that States and companies must end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations, “possibly including genocide”. They specified that this “must include indirect transfers through intermediary countries that could ultimately be used by Israeli forces, particularly in the ongoing attacks on Gaza.”

The responsibility of all states not to aid Israel’s grave international crimes is clear. Britain must immediately end all arms trade with Israel.

We demand the British government abide by its domestic and international law obligations by immediately:

* Stopping the arms trade to Israel

1. Introduce a comprehensive military embargo to end the two-way arms trade with Israel.
2. End all further military assistance to Israel, including through the RAF base in Akrotiri, Cyprus
3. Ensure that no airports or airspace in the north of Ireland are used to transport weapons, tech or other logistical or tactical support to Apartheid Israel.

* Call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire

* Support the unimpeded provision of sufficient humanitarian and medical aid into Gaza

* End Israel's impunity - implement sanctions, divest from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and genocide, and break diplomatic relations

* Defend Free Speech and the Right to Protest - End the criminalisation, repression and harassment of, and official scaremongering around, Palestine solidarity activism in the North of Ireland and Britain

Palestinians in Gaza cannot wait any longer for the British government to live up to its responsibilities not to aid and abet Israel's slaughter.

How many thousands more must be killed before David Lammy will act and stop arming Israel?

Signed:

Zoë Lawlor
Chairperson
Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Michela Strippoli
Helen McIlduff
Co-Chairs 
Belfast Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Catherine Hutton
Chair
Derry IPSC

Dermot Kelly
Chair
Armagh IPSC

Bernie Kirrane
Chair
Omagh IPSC

Pádraig Ó Ciaráin
Chair
Lurgan IPSC

Breandán MacCionnaith
Chair
Portadown IPSC

Mohammed Samaana
Palestine Community N Ireland

Patricia McKeown
Chair
Trades Union Friends of Palestine (TUFP)

Gerry Murphy
Assistant General Secretary
Irish Congress of Trades Unions

Paddy Mackel
Chair
Belfast Trades Council

Pat Sheehan
MLA
Sinn Féin

Gerry Carroll
MLA West Belfast
People Before Profit

Michael Doherty
Gaels Against Genocide in Gaza

Mothers Against Genocide

Stephen Loughran
Cairde Palestine

Liam McAvoy
Queerde Palestine

Reverend Bill Shaw
Kairos Ireland

Stephen McCloskey
Director
Centre for Global Education

Dr Azadeh Sobout
Member
Academics for Palestine

Brian Kelly
QUB Palestine Assembly

Annie de Bhal
Joelle Gartner
Leila Said Gutowski
Jews for Palestine - Ireland

Fiona Doran
Ivanka Antova
Co-Chairs
United Against Racism

Conchúr Ó Muadaigh
An Dream Dearg

Emeritus Professor Bill Rolston
Ulster University

Dr Raied al Wazzan
Vice Chair
Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality (NICRE)

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Nobel Peace Laureate