UK continuing to send arms to Israel despite ban, report finds

A new report suggests UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy may have misled parliament over claims relating to the UK’s recent partial suspension of arms exports to Israel. 

According to Middle East Eye on May 6th, the UK Foreign Office announced a partial suspension of arms exports to Israel in September 2024, over concerns that they may be used “to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

However, Israeli import data released in a report on Wednesday suggests that a wide array of UK arms have continued to be sent to Israel since the government’s suspension of 30 arms export licenses in September.

The report, compiled by campaign groups Workers for a Free Palestine, Progressive International, and the Palestinian Youth Movement, includes data from the Israeli Tax Authority showing that 8,630 separate munitions have been sent from the UK to Israel since the ban.

These shipments come under an import category labelled “bombs, grenades, torpedos, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and parts thereof”, and have included parts of F-35 fighter jets, vital to Israel’s war on Gaza. 

The majority of the munitions documented in the report were shipped after the government suspension, including the fighter jet parts, which were received in Israel as late as March, 5 months after the ban. 

The report argues that Foreign Secretary David Lammy has misled parliament over the nature of these shipments. 

In an address to parliament shortly after the ban, he said “much of what we send is defensive in nature. It is not what we describe routinely as arms.”

A Foreign Office spokesperson speaking to the Guardian claimed that the majority of weapons being provided to Israel were for civilian purposes, and not for use in war on Gaza, with the exception of the F-35 parts due to their importance as part of a NATO programme with significant wider security implications. They argued “Any suggestion that the UK is licensing other weapons for use by Israel in the war in Gaza is misleading.”

This report comes as Israel approves plans to expand its operations in Gaza, a move which the UK has condemned, reaffirming its desire for peace in the region. 

In the wake of the report, several MPs have written to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to address the allegations and for the government to disclose the full details of arms exports to Israel. 

MP and former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who signed the letter, highlighted that if Lammy had indeed misled parliament, it was a ‘resigning matter’, and could as well attract “a charge of complicity in war crimes.”

MP Zara Sultana argued the report was proof that the government has been “lying to us about the arms it is supplying to Israel while it wages genocide in Gaza”. She particularly condemned the supplying of parts of “the world’s most lethal fighter jets”.

The report’s release coincides with the UK government’s upcoming return to the High Court in a case regarding its arms exports to Israel brought by Palestinian rights group Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network. 

The case has recently focused on the UK’s decision to continue sending F-35 parts to Israel through third countries.

A lead campaigner involved in the case has argued that the report makes its clear that the UK has consistently failed to be transparent about arms exports and shows it to play a complicit role in Israel’s genocide. 

Middle East Eye/Maghrebi