https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-knows-it-enabling-israels-genocide-gaza
Sherin Wafi (centre) and her daughter Mira (4) mourn during the funeral of her husband Hosam Wafi, who was killed by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 2, 2025Starmer should not need to wait for the High Court’s decision on F-35 parts in order to do the right thing, warns CLAUDIA WEBBE
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According to the government’s “Strategic export controls: quarterly licensing statistics,” the UK sent more arms to Israel in the final three months of 2024, after the 8 per cent “ban,” than in all the preceding four years from 2020-23 combined. This escalation included the secret use of British military aircraft on at least seven occasions to deliver F-35 parts directly to Israel.
The government’s argument in court for the continued supply of F-35 parts to Israel has scraped through the bottom of even the toughest barrel. Its lawyers have argued that the “security” need to keep parts available around the world overrides Britain’s obligations, which are unequivocal under international law, to intervene to prevent genocide and war crimes and both that “no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian women or children” and that “there is also evidence of Israel making efforts to limit incidental harm to civilians,” despite Israel’s known heavy use of the heaviest US-made “dumb bombs” on densely populated civilian areas and the tent camps of refuges in supposed safe zones.
The government’s claim also flouts the clear evidence, provided by the United Nations as well as by every international, including Israeli human rights and humanitarian group, that Israel’s blockade is inflicting starvation on Gaza, putting huge numbers of civilians and especially children, at “imminent” risk of starving to death. According to Unicef in mid-May, “71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers … need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.”
In reality, the British government could inflict rapid degradation on the ability of Israel to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza just by imposing a ban on parts for a single aircraft type, that would also send a clear message to other governments still prevaricating over their obligations to take every available action to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The effects of this action, both militarily and politically, would be massively amplified if Britain did its legal duty and imposed the complete arms embargo demanded by human rights groups and campaigners.
All of this is possible right now. The Starmer government should not need a court order before it does the self-evidently right thing, and it must not drag its feet while the court process grinds on and more civilians in Gaza are killed. Every socialist, every decent human being, must demand nothing less on the streets and directly to the British Parliament and of their MP.
Claudia Webbe was previously the member of Parliament for Leicester East (2019–24). You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and x.com/claudiawebbe.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-knows-it-enabling-israels-genocide-gaza
