MEND STATEMENT: UK SUSPENSION OF TRADE TALKS WITH ISRAEL IS NOT ENOUGH, AN IMMEDIATE ARMS EMBARGO MUST FOLLOW!

Mend welcomes the UK government’s decision to suspend trade negotiations with Israel and impose long overdue sanctions on some Israeli settlers as a step in the right direction in light of the worsening humanitarian disaster in Gaza. However, we assert, unequivocally, that this move falls far short of the moral and legal responsibilities that the United Kingdom must uphold.

More than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7 2023, including over 15,000 children. The World Health Organisation warns that 2 million people are starving, and that 14,000 babies face the risk of imminent death unless action is taken to force Israel to allow in humanitarian aid.

Even though legal experts are widely of the opinion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UK arms exports to Tel Aviv have soared. Between October and December of 2024, London approved £127.6 million in arms export licenses, more than in the previous three years combined.

The UK’s own export control regime obliges the government to deny licences where there is a clear risk that the arms might be used in serious violations of international law. In Gaza, there is no doubt that they will be used in this way.

The suspension of trade talks and long overdue sanctions on Israeli settlers though symbolically important, will do very little to curb Israel’s mass atrocities, nor Britain’s complicity in them, unless more serious action is taken. Mend therefore calls upon the government to go further by urgently imposing an immediate arms embargo on Israel and to suspend all existing export licenses for military equipment.

Our country must not go on being complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. We call upon the government to act decisively and immediately.