- Written by Sam Francis
- BBC News political reporter
A ban on Britain’s arms sales to Israel will only strengthen Hamas, the Foreign Secretary has told the BBC.
He said Britain supplies just 1% of Israel’s weapons and warned that Israel must do more to protect civilians and channel humanitarian aid.
Labor’s Jonathan Ashworth said he did not want British weapons to be used in Rafah.
This week, U.S. President Joe Biden said the U.S. would “not supply weapons” if Israel presses ahead with its planned invasion of Rafah, a city in the southern part of Gaza that is home to about 1.4 million people, and said the U.S. would “not supply weapons” to the world’s most important strategically important city. It turned some of the relationship upside down. Evacuating.
More than 80,000 people have been evacuated from Rafah since Monday, according to the United Nations, and Israeli tanks are reportedly massing near the city.
Israel said it would proceed with its planned operation in Rafah, despite warnings from the United States and other allies that a ground attack could result in mass civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to eliminate the Hamas battalion that claims to be based in Rafah.
Prime Minister Cameron spoke with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday and said he would not support a full-scale attack on Rafah until he saw Israel’s “plan to protect its people.”
But he argued that the US was in a “completely different position” than the UK because it was a “large national arms supplier”.
When Prime Minister Cameron was finally urged to end arms sales to Israel after three British nationals were killed in an airstrike on aid workers in the Gaza Strip, he said: “A brutal attack on Israel by Iran will take place within days.” There was,” he said.
“Just announcing today that we will change our approach on arms exports will make Hamas even stronger and make a hostage deal less likely,” he added.
Instead, he said he wanted to focus on “building up humanitarian aid to Gaza day by day.”
On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced findings that Israel may have used U.S.-supplied weapons during the Gaza war in violation of international humanitarian law.
Asked whether he agreed with the findings, Prime Minister David Cameron said Israel’s “track record is not good enough” and insisted that “Israel is not in good health” when it comes to receiving humanitarian aid into the country. .
But Britain is taking a “different approach”, with Prime Minister David Cameron saying he is “not really interested in sending a message” through political moves such as suspending arms sales.
“I’m interested in what we can do to maximize British pressure and get an outcome that helps people’s lives, including the release of hostages, including British nationals,” Cameron said.
He dismissed the idea of putting British troops on Gaza soil as “a risk we shouldn’t take.”
This comes after the BBC reported last month that the government was considering sending British troops to Gaza to help transport aid via new sea routes.
Labor MP Zarah Sultana accused the government of failing to follow its own rules by supplying weapons to Israel.
The government’s strategic export licensing standards prohibit the sale of weapons “where there is a clear risk that the item will be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.” .
Sultana said the scale of arms sales to Israel “doesn’t matter.”
“We are aiding and abetting war crimes happening on a daily basis,” she told the BBC.
Labor’s position on Gaza has changed since the October 7 Hamas attack, which abducted 252 people and killed around 1,200, sparking a full-scale Israeli military operation in the region.
Since then, more than 35,000 people have been killed and 78,000 injured in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled region’s health ministry.
Last year, 10 of Labour’s front-runners resigned because the party supported a “humanitarian moratorium” to allow aid to flow into the Strip and did not call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. .
Mr Ashworth, the shadow cabinet official, said: “I don’t want to see British weapons used” in the invasion of Rafah.
“A full-scale attack on Rafah would be an unspeakable catastrophe,” he said.
He called on the government to make public the legal advice it had given regarding arms sales to Israel.
