Starmer and Lammy are ‘monstrous war criminals’ – Palestinian lawyer
Bereaved attorney accuses Britain of “active participation” in Israeli war crimes, as International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
Starmer and Lammy board a plane to Washington D.C. (Photo: Stefan Rousseau / Alamy)
PHIL MILLER
Keir Starmer and David Lammy have the “blood of Palestinian children on their hands” for supporting Israel, a lawyer from Gaza has said.
Ahmed Abofoul, who has seen over 60 members of his family killed by Israel, said the UK prime minister and foreign secretary are “monstrous war criminals”.
His comments come as the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.
The ICC’s pre-trial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel’s prime minister was responsible for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare”.
Netanyahu “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water…as well as fuel and electricity”, according to the indictment.
Last October, Starmer was asked on LBC radio if it was appropriate for Israel to cut off water and power supplies to Gaza. “Israel does have that right”, Starmer responded.
Abofoul – a legal adviser at Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq – described the situation in Gaza as a “live streamed genocide” with Israel “engaged in an extermination campaign”.
Starmer and Lammy have both refused to class Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, which Abofoul said was “quite ridiculous”.
He commented: “It’s really disappointing to see the British government not only being complicit in this genocide, but even engaged in a campaign of distortion of international humanitarian law in the service of a racist apartheid regime.”
Abofoul added: “We will not rest until they’re all held accountable before their own courts and even before other courts if possible.”
Watch our interview with Al-Haq
‘Break out from US hegemony’
He made the comments to Declassified outside the High Court in London on Monday where Al-Haq is bringing a case against the British government.
Al-Haq argues that all UK arms export licences to Israel should be suspended, rather than the partial embargo Lammy passed in September.
Labour stopped short of banning exports of spare parts for Israel’s “most lethal” warplane, the F-35, fearing it “would undermine US confidence in the UK”, court papers revealed.
Over 100 companies in the UK combine to make more than 15% of each plane, under a consortium led by American arms giant Lockheed Martin.
“We are at a moment of history where the UK needs to…make its own foreign policy and break out from US hegemony and stand principally for international law,” Abofoul commented.
The Labour government created a ‘carve-out’ for F-35 exports after defence secretary John Healey warned about damaging the ‘special relationship’, despite knowing Israel had used the aircraft to kill civilians.
An F-35 attack on a designated ‘safe zone’ in Gaza killed 90 people, weeks before Lammy announced the ‘carve-out’.
“We’re talking about one of the most densely populated areas in the world,” Abofoul commented. “To throw these kinds of bombs…on refugee camps…shredding children’s bodies into pieces – is just a monstrous act.
“To say that this is somewhat acceptable by the UK, or the UK does not bear responsibility, is ridiculous because the UK government itself recognised that F-35 fighter jets are most likely being used.
“This was the UK’s conclusion – that these fighter jets are being used in international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. And so to continue supporting these bombings is, in my view, an active participation in these crimes…we’re beyond complicity.”
Abofoul was responding to court papers filed by the government, which said: “The F-35 carve out accepts that there is clear risk that F-35 components might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of IHL but determines that in the exceptional circumstances outlined by the defence secretary, these exports should nonetheless continue.”
Al-Haq is represented in court by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which is concerned that Labour “waited five weeks to act” after privately assessing Israel could use British weapons against civilians.
GLAN cited figures from the United Nations to show that “at least 1,716 Palestinians were killed by Israel in Gaza” between the time Labour identified a war crimes risk and restricted some arms exports.
This article (Starmer and Lammy are ‘monstrous war criminals’ – Palestinian lawyer) was created and published by DECLASSIFIED UK and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Phil Miller
Featured images: Wikimedia Commons
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