International condemnation for Israel’s actions in Gaza is growing with horrific and heartbreaking photographs of babies and children it is deliberately starving even making it as far as the front page of the Daily Express.
However, instead of taking meaningful action, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has instead lied to numerous media outlets about the UK’s role in arming Israel. Even former Conservative Secretary of State for Education and Home Office minister Kit Malthouse condemned Lammy’s stance, asking if he can “see the personal risk to him, given our international obligations, that he may end up at The Hague because of his inaction?”
Lammy claimed that the UK is not sending any military equipment to Israel that might be used in Gaza, and he also denied that the UK is providing Israel with spare parts for the F-35 fighter jets.
The UK makes 15% of every F-35 combat aircraft that Israel is using to drop 2000lb bombs on children in Gaza. While his government did suspend a small number of arms sales to Israel, it made an exemption – known as the F-35 carve out – for F-35 parts going into the global stockpile that Israel can and is accessing.
In the recent GLAN/Al-Haq court case over their continued supply, his government admitted there is a clear risk that Israel is using F-35s to commit war crimes and that Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law. Its own Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) found that “it is uncontentious that conduct which could, in principle, satisfy the physical component of genocide continues to take place in Gaza”.
Throughout the entire court case there was no suggestion that the UK is not supplying spare parts to Israel via the global stockpile – the argument was simply that it was in the interests of national security to allow this flow of spare parts to continue. Furthermore there is no evidence that his government has made any attempt to work with F-35 partner nations to stop Israel receiving these parts.
However, F-35 spare parts are not the only concerning part of the UK’s arms trade with Israel. Export licensing figures show that the government licensed £142m worth of military equipment to Israel in 2024.
Lammy, and others in his government, have tried to justify this massive increase in exports on the basis that the majority were connected to an arms project for export to another country. However, as a letter dated 15 July, cosigned by 56 MPs and peers, asks, ‘why is the UK continuing such co-production with a state that the government has acknowledged is not committed to International Humanitarian Law?’ Such close collaboration with the Israeli arms industry still supports the Israeli war machine responsible for its genocide in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the UK’s largest arms fair, DSEI, is set to welcome Israeli delegates and arms companies in September. The government is yet to confirm whether it will invite an official Israeli delegation as it has in previous years, but Israeli arms companies are already gearing up for the event. For example, Israeli Aerospace Industries is already advertising its presence at the event with a brochure of military equipment used to commit genocide.
Emily Apple, Campaign Against Arms Trade’s Media Coordinator, said:
“We are not equivocating – the evidence is clear – David Lammy is lying about the UK’s arms trade with Israel. The world is finally seeing the unspeakable horrors that Israel is inflicting on children in Gaza, yet Lammy is continuing to defend the indefensible. He is complicit in the worst war crimes imaginable, and he will face the consequences of his actions.
“Lammy claims our arms export license system is the most robust in the world. The questions asked by over 50 parliamentarians show this isn’t the case. Far from cutting off arms sales to Israel, not only has this government increased them, it is getting ready to roll out the red carpet for Israeli arms companies and delegates at the London arms fair. Moreover his government has deliberately chosen to set aside this so-called ‘robust’ regime to protect the F-35 components – the UK’s single biggest contribution to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“This government’s position is unconscionable. Instead of imposing a full two-way arms embargo, it has prioritised the profits of arms dealers over Palestinian lives, and criminalised protesters doing what they think is necessary to stop a genocide as terrorists.
“History will condemn Lammy and his government. But Palestinian people can’t wait for history. These atrocities are happening now, and it is down to every one of us to sound the alarm and do everything we can to stop them.”
