"UK sent Israel thousands of military items despite export ban, study finds"

Trade data analysis shows British firms have exported items including munitions since suspension of key licences

UK firms have exported thousands of military items including munitions to Israel despite the government suspending key arms export licences to the country in September, new analysis of trade data shows.
The research also raises questions over whether the UK continued to sell F-35 parts directly to Israel in breach of an undertaking only to sell them to the US manufacturers Lockheed Martin as a way of ensuring the fighter jet’s global supply chain was not disrupted, something the government said was essential for national security and Nato.

The findings have led the former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell to call for a full investigation, adding it was a resigning matter if the foreign secretary, David Lammy, was shown to have misled parliament in breach of the ministerial code when he told MPs in September that much of what the UK sends to Israel was “defensive in nature”. [...]

The research – conducted jointly by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International and Workers for a Free Palestine – uses Israeli tax authority import data to try to uncover what the continuance of the 200 arms export licences has allowed Israel to import. It covers the first seven months of the Labour ban to March. [...]

The suspensions were due to a clear risk that Israel might use the arms to commit serious breaches of international humanitarian law. Ministers have repeatedly assured MPs that the arms export licences remaining in place did not cover goods for use by the Israeli military in the conflict with Hamas.

Lammy, for instance, told parliament in September the continuing licences covered items such as “goggles and helmets for use by one of the UK’s closest allies”.

The Foreign Office has not published details of what the continuing licences covered.

But the new research raises questions over whether that distinction between supplying equipment for Israel’s offensive and defensive purposes is, or ever was, valid, especially if, as it appears, it provided a loophole for sales of munitions to Israel. The UK has no means of checking how the munitions it exports are used by the Israel Defense Forces. [...]

On the commitment not to sell F-35 components to Israel directly, the report finds that the monthly pattern of UK shipments of aircraft parts to Israel is largely unchanged since September, but the data does not reveal if they are military parts. [...]

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “This government has suspended relevant licences for the IDF that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

“Of the remaining licences for Israel, the vast majority are not for the Israeli Defence Forces but are for civilian purposes or re-export, and therefore are not used in the war in Gaza.

“The only exemption is the F-35 programme due to its strategic role in Nato and wider implications for international peace and security. Any suggestion that the UK is licensing other weapons for use by Israel in the war in Gaza is misleading.

“The UK totally opposes an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. We urge all parties to return urgently to talks, implement the ceasefire agreement in full, secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas, and work towards a permanent peace.”