UK
Palestine – Build Pressure on Starmer to halt arms sales!
Lancet report published on July 5th
By Matt Willgress, Labour & Palestine
This Tuesday, Israel’s military again attacked the Gaza Strip, killing at least 77 Palestinians, including dozens sheltering at a school, in one of the deadliest attacks of recent weeks.
Al Jazeera reported that, “In the town of Abbasan, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israeli air attack on the al-Awdah school killed at least 30 people and wounded 53, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian medics.”
After nearly nine months of war crimes, over 38,243 people have now been killed and 88,243 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, and around 1.7 million people have been internally displaced.
A Lancet report published on July 5 outlined exactly what these figures mean, and argued that “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.”
Alongside this, the news this week from the Palestinian Red Crescent that all of its medical clinics were out of service in Gaza City due to the Israeli evacuation orders further emphasised the humanitarian catastrophe facing the people of Gaza.
These latest war crimes illustrate clearly why it’s time to escalate our demands on the new Government for an immediate embargo on trading arms with Israel.
This is also what the British public wants.
A poll in May found that 55% of people support the UK ending the sale of arms to Israel for the duration of the conflict in Gaza, whilst only 13% want to see their continuation.
Even amongst those who voted for the Conservative Party in 2019, the poll found that 40% are in favour of the UK suspending arms sales to Israel, while just 24% opposed.
Even more relevant in terms of our campaigning, amongst those who voted for Labour, 74% are in favour of the UK suspending arms sales, compared to 7% who oppose.
In opposition, Labour’s frontbench called on the then Tory Government to publish legal advice about whether Israel has broken international law in Gaza, with David Lammy (now Foreign Secretary) saying “if it [nb. the legal advice] says there is a clear risk that UK arms might be used in a serious breach of international humanitarian law, it’s time to suspend the sale of those arms.”
Now, they should follow their own advice and an arms embargo must be enacted.
As the recent Artists for Palestine letter to Keir Starmer argued, “By suspending arms sales to Israel, particularly while its leader faces arrest warrants from the ICC, you can send a clear message that the UK will not tolerate human rights abuses and will stand up for the oppressed.”
It is then so important that we remain active on the streets – and throughout the labour and trade union movement – speaking up for Palestine.
We have seen demonstration after demonstration nationally for Palestine on an unprecedented scale. There have been 14 national marches since October, with a total attendance of well over 4 million. This is a movement we should be proud of, and which continues to shake up the system here and internationally.
Now, the situation is clear – after its General Election win, Labour has not committed to either halting arms sales to Israel, or to joining Ireland, Spain, Norway and others in recognising a Palestinian state.
Therefore our response is also loud and clear – not in our name, we will keep speaking up for Palestine, halt arms sales now!
- Labour & Palestine are hosting an online event ‘Palestine: What should the new UK Government do?‘ on Tuesday, July 16th at 6.30PM, with the Palestinian Ambassador and voices from our movement. Register your place here.
- You can follow Labour & Palestine on Facebook and Twitter/X.
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