A F35 aircraft prepares to land at RAF Marham, Norfolk
APALESTINIAN human rights group announced today that it is appealing against a High Court ruling on Britain’s arms exports to Israel.
Al-Haq has been engaged in a long legal battle against the Department for Business and Trade, challenging the export of parts for lethal F-35 jets.
In July, the High Court rejected the challenge and ruled that it was for Parliament and not the court to decide whether the decision to continue the exports breached Britain’s international legal obligations.
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A hearing will now be held at the Court of Appeal on October 9.
Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin said: “If the UK courts are unwilling to hold the government accountable for arming Israel during the deadliest phase of its genocide to date, who will?
“The court’s findings set a dangerous precedent and risk undermining the legal mechanisms designed to ensure government accountability.”
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Private Eye magazine has reported that Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, is close to winning a £2 billion contract that would make it a “strategic partner” of the Ministry of Defence.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Keir Starmer and David Lammy’s remarkable attempts to publicly realign their government’s support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza reflect similar shifts recently performed by political leaders in France, Canada, the US and Germany.
On 20 May, Starmer told MPs that innocent children’s suffering in Gaza was “intolerable”, while Lammy called it “abominable”. Lammy condemned Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich’s call to “purify Gaza” by ethnic cleansing as “dangerous, repellent and monstrous”[1].
By 26 May even the GermanChancellor, Friedrich Merz admitted that Israel’s actions in Gaza “can no longer be justified”.
Given such politicians’ unstinting support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, we may be forgiven for questioning whether their latest pronouncements indicate a shift in policy, a rhetorical attempt to placate public opposition to state collusion in genocide, or an insurance policy against being named in future legal proceedings.
In fact, Lammy’s suspension of UK-Israel free trade talks on 20 May in response to Israel’s block on aid to Gaza was swiftly followed on 26 May by an official visit to the port of Haifa by UK Trade Envoy, Lord Ian Austin, who as the UK Embassy to Israel triumphantly tweeted was “witnessing cooperation at every stop”[2].
While President Trump’s recent decision not to visit Israel was a signal to US allies to adjust their foreign policy stance, UK arms exports to Israel have been a consistent focus of sustained, pro-Palestine mass protests in Britain since October 2023.
Alongside an unparalleled mass movement on the streets of British towns and cities a quiet but effective legal challenge was launched against the UK government’s policy of arms exports to Israel. Campaigners took the UK government to court, accusing it of failing to uphold domestic and international legal obligations by supplying weapons and components used in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Starmer and Lammy’s performed their volte-face in the House of Commons just four days after a landmark High Court challenge by Global Legal Action Network (GLAN)[3] and Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq[4] against the UK government’s decision on 2 September 2024 to continue licensing export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, while suspending other arms exports due to risk of violations of international law.
The High Court case displays a web of contradictions and the hypocrisy of ministers’ public statements on arms sales to Israel. According to GLAN and Al-Haq, it exposed “structural flaws in accountability” in the UK arms export control regime, which “renders it unfit to ensure respect for fundamental legal and humanitarian obligations”.
Al-Haq points out, “In Parliament, the government maintains it is for the courts to decide whether Britain is complying with its legal obligations. Yet in court, their lawyers argued the opposite — they say that such matters are not for the judiciary to examine.”
Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, representing GLAN points out, “The government has been telling Parliament that it is unable to answer questions regarding its decision to indirectly arm Israel because that decision is being tested in the courts, and at the same time telling the judiciary that it cannot examine that decision because that is the role of Parliament.”
In the High Court, UK government lawyers rejected Al-Haq’s assertion that there is at least a serious risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and said there is “a tenable view that no genocide has occurred or is occurring”.
Internationally accepted arguments relating to breaches of the Genocide Convention, in the context of the enormous harms suffered by civilians in Gaza, were dismissed by UK government lawyers as “touchy feely”.
The UK government also claimed it had seen “no deliberate targeting of women and children”, and therefore “no serious risk of genocide”. In its own evidence, the government included a report entitled “Research Report: Long-Range Shootings or Shootings of Minors.” This was withheld from GLAN and Al-Haq, despite a duty to disclose and an explicit request for its disclosure.
The UK government also claimed in the High Court that Israel’s targeting policies were as good as the UK’s. Is that even a defence?
That this happened days before Lammy’s statement to MPs on the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories will lead many to suspect that Lammy’s latest windy denunciations of Israeli politicians and a few settlers is a red herring intended to shield UK government ministers from charges of arms exports to Israel in breach of domestic and international law.
Lammy in his statement to MPs on 20 May referred to “a new, extensive ground operation throughout Gaza”, “renewed bombardment, new displacement and new suffering”, and said “we are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict”.
The emphasis on the new level of Israeli atrocities in Gaza is intended create a bogus political and legal distinction between the ‘normal conduct’ of Israel’s war on Gaza, impossible to conduct without arms exports, military intelligence and diplomatic support from Britain, and the latest ‘unacceptable conduct’ of the siege of Gaza by Israel, the starvation and mass displacement of Palestinians, which David Lammy and Keir Starmer condemn so robustly before TV cameras in the House of Commons.
Given the sustained horror of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians over a period of 20 months and the growing evidence of UK government complicity in immoral and illegal arms sales, it will be a difficult political trick for Starmer and Lammy to pull off.
As Gearóid Ó Cuinn, Director of the Global Legal Action Network says, “The government has now been exposed as being disingenuous in Parliament and in court; this merry-go-round of delay and inaction is facilitating genocide and needs to stop. A decision in our case will come far too late for the people of Gaza who are being starved to death – the government must immediately end arms sales and other forms of military support to Israel and apply sanctions.”
[4] UK’s ‘flawed’ assessment of genocide in Gaza revealed in court that contradicts claims made in Parliament, 20 May 2025 https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/26458.html
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.UK Conservative Party leader Kemi ‘not a genocide’ Badenoch explains her reality that the Earth is flat, the Moon is made of cheese and that she was born from Unicorn horn dust
Displaced Palestinians fleeing Beit Lahia amid ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip arrive in Jabalia, northern Gaza, May 16, 2025
LAWYERS shared harrowing testimonies today from doctors who treated children shot through the heart in Gaza as the government defended its decision to continue exporting arms to Israel in court.
In written submissions for the case, the government has claimed there is a “tenable view that no genocide has occurred or is occurring.”
But last August, doctors submitted chilling evidence now being shared by Global Legal Action Network (Glan), which launched the challenge alongside Palestinian organisation Al-Haq.
Dr Mark Perlmutter, who has been a humanitarian surgeon for 30 years, travelled to Gaza with the World Health Organisation last year.
He recounted how he “saw more incinerated and shredded children than I have ever seen in my entire life of working in war zones combined.”
He described treating children “whose faces had been completely disfigured, exposing the muscles.“They no longer had faces”.”I treated so many children that had been snipered, some of them multiple times.”
He said that he evaluated two children who had been snipered twice each in the head and chest.
“These two children were shot so perfectly in the chest that I couldn’t have put my stethoscope over their hearts more accurately.”
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
A demonstrator outside the Royal Courts of Justice, May 13, 2025
THERE is clear evidence British weapons are contributing to war crimes in Gaza, campaigners outside the High Court said yesterday as the government went on trial to defend its continued supply of arms to Israel.
The case, case brought by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, challenges the government’s decision to continue exporting components for F-35 jets, described by its US manufacturer Lockheed Martin as “the most lethal” fighter jet in the world.
Last September, the government enforced a partial ban on arms exports to Israel, suspending 30 out of 350 licences, after admitting there was a “clear risk” they could be used to violate international law.
But it carved out an exception for F-35 components, arguing that they are part of a global supply programme and important to international security.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade said that British industry manufactures 15 per cent of each jet, which have dropped 2,000lb bombs on “safe zones” in Gaza.
The government said the parts would not be sent directly to Israel, but allows them to be supplied via the global spares pool and F-35 partner countries, a move lawyers argue breaches international and domestic law.Raza Husain KC, for Al-Haq, said the loophole “gives rise to a significant risk of facilitating crime.”
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREVote For Genocide Vote Labour.
A Palestinian girl struggles to obtain donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 9, 2025
ANSELM ELDERGILL draws attention to a legal case on Tuesday in which a human rights group is challenging the government’s decision to allow the sale of weapons used against Palestinians
A FOUR-DAY High Court hearing begins on Tuesday in which Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, is challenging the government’s decision to continue granting licences to sell F-35 fighter jet components and other weapons to Israel. Oxfam, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have intervened in the case.
Public statements by Israeli officials make it clear that F-35s are regularly used in military attacks on Gaza. The British government accepts there is a “clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law.” It has also admitted that Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law. However, it says that stopping the F-35 licences would “cause disruption to the global supply chain,” which will have a profound impact on international peace and security.
Al-Haq considers that this is an extraordinary position to take. According to its general director, “Gaza is destroyed, it is unliveable. Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and erased by weapons whose components are supplied to Israel by the British government, acting in full knowledge of the consequences.”
The Arms Trade Treaty of 2014 regulates the international trade in conventional arms. Authorising the export of weapons and related items is prohibited if a government knows that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 or attacks on civilian objects or protected civilians.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Keir Starmer wanted for Genocide and war crimes
A F35 aircraft prepares to land at RAF Marham, Norfolk
A demonstrator outside the Royal Courts of Justice, May 13, 2025
