Al Jazeera Net Correspondents
London- The British government, led by Keir Starmer, is in a state of confusion, due to its desire to maintain its support for Israel, while avoiding a legal confrontation with human rights institutions that are taking it to court to issue a court order permanently banning the export of arms to Israel, instead of partially suspending some licenses.
The ruling is expected by next October, and if it is favourable to human rights institutions, the British government will be forced to halt arms sales to Israel, particularly those related to F-35 aircraft parts, while the government seeks to procrastinate and extend the trial deadline until Israel ends its aggression against the Gaza Strip.
The Guardian newspaper revealed that the British government also fears that the International Criminal Court will issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that the court will ask him to sign the warrant, meaning that London will be forced to arrest Netanyahu if he visits UK territory.
Adding to the Starmer government’s problems is that any move to sign the arrest warrant will not go down well with Washington, which is pushing not to issue the warrant, especially after the Starmer government withdrew a legal objection submitted by the previous Conservative government arguing that the prosecutor of the Criminal Court… does not have the judicial authority to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Galant for crimes against humanity.
Conclusive proof
For its part, the British Haq Foundation confirmed that it had presented, in collaboration with the Global Legal Action Network, conclusive and in-depth evidence to the Supreme Court, detailing “Israel’s unlawful and unreliable use of information extracted under torture to justify attacks on civilian workers and medical facilities, as well as on humanitarian workers, thereby undermining the UK’s confidence in Israeli assurances in its response to our case.”
The British institution said – in its response to a question from Al Jazeera Net about the progress of the case – that the Supreme Court has set a hearing for the file that I submitted between October 8 and 10 next year, and that the Court also granted permission on June 13 to join us in supporting our cause for all… On behalf of the British organization “Oxfam”, “Human Rights Watch” and Amnesty International in the United Kingdom.
British lawyer Charlotte Andrews, who is leading the case against the British government, says the reason the Global Legal Action Network filed the lawsuit is “the murder of over 34,000 people while the world watches on daily, which makes this case a real crime.” urgent and unacceptable.
The lawyer said – in a statement to Al Jazeera Net – that “the case has taken longer than necessary, especially given its nature, and this is due to the tactics followed by the government, which is to delay the case and ask for its postponement” each time, and now the government is asking to postpone the decision on this file until December “next December, which is really shameful.”
Andrews asked: “If the government does not care about the lives lost every day, some of them killed by British weapons, how many parents and children will be killed by December?” she asked.
Trying to escape
Regarding the halt to the export of parts and spare parts for the F-35 aircraft, the British legal expert pointed out that these aircraft were used to drop about a ton of bombs on Gaza, knowing that it is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, “and these aircraft caused the death of civilians.” And large-scale destruction, and yet the government continues to supply Israel with everything related to these aircraft.
The spokeswoman sent a warning to British officials that, should the court rule that arms exports to Israel were illegal, “any continued facilitation of the transfer of fighter jet parts would expose them to charges of complicity in war crimes,” and they would then be tried by a jury of the Kingdom’s senior judicial officials.
She added that neither politicians nor businessmen who facilitate such arms sales can hope to get away with it, “because they are providing aid to a country accused of genocide.”
For her part, the legal advisor of the Global Legal Action Network, Dearbella Minogue, said in her commentary on this case, sent to Al Jazeera Net, that the British government “has crossed the boundaries of legal logic to the point of absurdity in order to arm a country that commits serious violations of international humanitarian law.
The legal expert added that since the beginning of the aggression against Gaza, it was clear that “the government has failed to treat this situation with the minimum seriousness that the issue requires, and the government must listen to the international legal consensus and stop arms sales now.