I call on Keir Starmer to suspend arms sales to Israel and end Britain’s complicity in the massacre | Israel-Gaza War

Every time I see the heartbreaking aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Gaza – a Palestinian mother holding her child’s lifeless body, a refugee camp engulfed in flames – I ask myself the same question. Were British-made weapons used to inflict this horror?

The answer is almost certainly sometimes “yes.” Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets, described by its manufacturer as “the world’s deadliest fighter jet,” is raining hell on Gaza. Each plane is manufactured, in part, in Britain, under a contract estimated by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade to be worth £368 million.

This is just one example of Israel’s use of British-made weapons in its assault on Gaza. But after almost 10 months and 38,000 Palestinian deaths, the Conservatives left office refusing to suspend arms sales, which is an eternal shame for them. That responsibility now falls to Labour.

Our new government must do the right thing and stop enabling Israeli war crimes. That is why today, as a Labour backbencher, I am tabling an amendment to the King’s Speech calling on my colleagues to respect international law and suspend arms sales to Israel.

There is no time to lose. The past week has been “one of the deadliest” since the start of the Israeli offensive, according to UNRWA, the UN humanitarian agency for the Palestinians. We must urgently pull all levers and make every effort to pressure the Israeli government to respect international law and end this attack. This is not only a moral duty, it is also a legal duty.

Back to the F-35. The Israeli military equipped these planes with 2,000-pound bombs, explosives that can have a range of up to 1,200 feet, or 58 football fields. A recent UN report identified these bombs as having been used in “emblematic” cases of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Gaza that “resulted in a large number of civilian deaths and widespread destruction of civilian objects.” In a legal understatement, the UN said this raised “grave concerns under the laws of war.”

This is where our arms export laws come in. As our new Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, said a few months ago: “The law is clear. UK arms licences cannot be granted if there is a clear risk that the items will be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” There is no doubt that this threshold has been reached, which is why UN experts have called for arms exports to Israel to cease immediately.

And it is not just the F-35s that are at risk of being used in breach of international law. Since 2015, Conservative governments have granted the Israeli military “standard licences” worth more than £490 million, and an unknown amount of military equipment – ​​including parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets – has been transferred under covert “open licences”. It is not just the integrity of British laws that is at stake, but the entire international legal system.

In January, the International Court of Justice ruled that there was a “plausible” risk of genocide in Gaza. As a signatory, the British government has a legal obligation to prevent and punish genocide, an obligation our previous government blatantly ignored by arming Israel, opposing an immediate ceasefire and suspending funding to UNRWA, even as famine erupted in the besieged enclave.

In May, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor requested war crimes warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, but the Conservative government again undermined international law and challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction.

At the time, Labour opposed it. Lammy said: “The Conservatives have backtracked on their commitment to the rule of law. Labour supports the independence of international courts. The prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants, and the jurisdiction of the ICC, are within the jurisdiction of the ICC.” That commitment to international law must be upheld, even if President Biden objects. That is why my amendment also calls on the government to drop the UK’s challenge to the ICC issuing arrest warrants.

These demands are not exactly radical. In response to past Israeli attacks, British governments have suspended arms sales to Israel: Margaret Thatcher in 1982, Tony Blair in 2002, Gordon Brown in 2009 and David Cameron in 2014.

This Israeli attack has inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinian people far beyond anything seen before, and yet the Conservative government has refused to act. The new government should not need to be reprimanded.

Labour’s landslide victory earlier this month masked widespread discontent with the party’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza, particularly among Britain’s Muslim communities. If the new government is to turn the page, the first step it should take is to ban arms sales to Israel, a measure supported by 56% of the public.

So far, I have accused the Conservative Government of complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people. That complicity must end now that we have a Labour Government. I therefore urge my colleagues to respect international law, to suspend arms sales to Israel and to support my amendment.

• Zarah Sultana is the Labour MP for Coventry South

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