Three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president Lady Hale, are among more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: “While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue (to take two striking examples) the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to Unwra falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”
The UK government has refused to publish its own legal advice on the matter but a leaked recording suggests its own lawyers have advised that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: “While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue (to take two striking examples) the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to Unwra falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”
It comes as Conservative MPs piled pressure on Rishi Sunak to act after seven international aid workers, including three British citizens, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Monday.
The Scottish first minister, Humza Yousaf, warned that by refusing to stop arms sales to Israel, “the UK is in danger of being complicit in the killing of innocent civilians”.
The letter goes further – and has a more eminent list of signatories – than a previous one sent to Sunak in October, concerning the government’s obligations to avert and avoid complicity in serious breaches of international humanitarian law.
The letter also calls on the government to continue to “use all endeavours” to secure the release of the Israeli hostages seized in the 7 October attacks in which Hamas and other militant groups killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel.
The UK government has refused to publish its own legal advice on the matter but a leaked recording suggests its own lawyers have advised that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza.
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