Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused the current leader, Keir Starmer, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy of “abandoning Israel”, while Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said on X: “It beggars belief that the British government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences.”
But both Oxfam and Amnesty International said the British government’s actions were insufficient.
Oxfam’s chief executive, Halima Begum, welcomed Britain’s recognition “of the clear risk” that its arms were being used “in serious breaches” of international humanitarian law. But, she said in a statement, “suspending just 30 licences out of 350, and crucially leaving loopholes for components in F-35 fighter jets that have been dropping 2000-pound bombs on Palestinians for months now, is nowhere near adequate”.
Amnesty International said the decision was “too limited”, with its UK chief executive Sacha Deshmukh arguing in a statement that the exemption of the F-35 programme “is a catastrophically bad decision for the future of arms control and misses a clear obligation to hold Israel accountable for its extensive war crimes and other violations”.
Healey said his government did not introduce a suspension for F-35 components, as it is “hard to distinguish” which are used for Israeli jets. “This is a global supply chain, with the UK a vital part of that supply chain,” he told the BBC. “We are not prepared to put at risk the operation of fighter jets that are central to our own UK security, that of our allies and of Nato.”
At least 40,819 people have been killed and 94,291 injured in Gaza since the war started, acording to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1200 people were killed in Hamas’ October 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 340 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.