New UK government urged to halt arms sales to Israel and restore Unrwa funding
Less than a week into the job, the UK's new Labour government is being urged to restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, and halt arms sales to Israel immediately.
In two separate letters, six rights groups and an MP have pushed for action on two issues that sparked fierce parliamentary debate and public outcry ahead of the election.
While Labour won a comfortable victory in the general election last week, senior party figures have acknowledged that its stance on Gaza cost the party seats, putting pressure on Labour to be seen to take action.
On Sunday, in one of his first conversations with a foreign leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there was a "clear and urgent need for a ceasefire".
But in their letter, the six NGOs, including two that launched a legal challenge to stop UK arms exports to Israel in the High Court last year, say that call was not enough, "in particular when the UK is arming one party to the conflict".
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They have urged the government to "suspend, revoke and refuse all arms licences for Israel now", arguing that the continued sales have made the UK complicit in Israel's war crimes, including genocide.
"The prime minister and the foreign secretary are themselves lawyers," they write.
"They know that there will, undoubtedly, be a reckoning in which Israel will be found to have committed mass atrocities."
The previous government repeatedly cited legal advice provided by Foreign Office officials to justify UK arms sales to Israel in the face of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, but declined to release the advice publicly as sales continued.
Ahead of the election, now Foreign Secretary David Lammy repeatedly called on the government to release the advice.
Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), the two organisations which have brought the High Court legal challenge, said on Thursday they were sending an additional letter to Lammy to request that he disclose that advice.
The four other organisations which signed the letter are the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, War on Want, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Campaign Against Arms Trade.
MEE asked the Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade whether they intended to support the continued export of UK arms to Israel.
The Foreign Office did not respond.
A business department spokesperson said: "It is vital the government upholds both our domestic and international legal obligations when it comes to arms exports.
“We operate a robust and thorough assessment of all export licence applications against our Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, and will review the available advice before coming to a considered decision.”
Restoring Unrwa funding
In a separate letter, also sent on Thursday, Plaid Cymru foreign affairs spokesperson and MP Ben Lake urged Lammy to restore UK funding to Unrwa "as a matter of urgency".
In late January, Britain was among over a dozen countries which suspended their funding after Israeli allegations that 12 of the agency's 30,000 staff members had participated in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October.
'You committed a future Labour UK government to immediately restoring funding for Unrwa'
- Plaid Cymru MP Ben Lake
Since then, most of the countries, including many of the UK's allies, have resumed their funding, citing scant evidence to back up Israel's allegations.
In April, Lammy asked the government why it had not yet announced it was restoring funding to Unrwa.
"It is shocking that, in the face of famine, the UK is one of the last major donors that has not resumed funding without explanation," he said in parliament.
On Thursday, Lake reminded Lammy of his comments. "You committed a future Labour UK government to immediately restoring funding for Unrwa,” he wrote.
"I now ask that you honour this commitment as a matter of urgency and bring the UK’s position in line with that of nations such as Australia, Sweden, Japan, and Germany," Lake wrote.
The Foreign Office also did not respond to a request for comment on Lake's letter, which come days before Lammy is scheduled to visit Israel.
More than 38,000 Palestinians, including over 26,000 women and children, have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli assault on the enclave, launched after Hamas-led attacks killed 1,200 Israelis last October.
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