UK Poised to Halt Arms to Israel – And Withdraw Objections to Netanyahu Arrest Warrant

Labour intends to publicise – and follow – advice it has commissioned from officials that is expected to recommend the UK halts some if not all arms exports to Israel, Novara Media understands. The UK will also reportedly withdraw its objections to the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Conservative government first applied to submit formal objections to the ICC earlier this year, after prosecutor Karim Khan applied to the ICC judges for arrest warrants against three Hamas leaders (Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh) and two senior Israeli officials (Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant) for alleged war crimes committed since 7 October.

The UK was given until 12 July to submit its objections, though was granted an extension after the general election was called. The new deadline is on Friday, and the UK is not expected to submit anything.

Sources with knowledge of the matter indicated to Novara Media that foreign secretary David Lammy, attorney general Richard Hermer KC – a Jewish lawyer who in mid-October signed an open letter in the Financial Times calling on Israel to respect international law in its operations in Gaza – and officials within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) are in agreement that the UK should drop its objections to the ICC. If it does, it would mark a major break from the line of the United States that the UK has mostly followed in relation to Israel and Palestine in recent years. The question is whether Keir Starmer will assent to the decision.

Labour initially indicated it would drop the UK’s objections to the ICC, though after apparent pressure from the US, it backtracked.

Novara Media also understands that it is the foreign secretary’s intention to publish official advice on the legality of supplying weapons to Israel. The advice, which is expected as early as next week, is likely to say that Israel has violated international humanitarian law in its assault on Gaza, and suggest that the UK should take additional measures to ensure its weapons are not being used in such violations. It will likely recommend that the UK restricts some if not all weapons exports to Israel. Novara Media understands that the attorney general, foreign secretary and FCDO officials are minded to follow that advice – although the ultimate decision rests with the prime minister.

The foreign secretary’s office declined Novara Media’s request for comment, though did not deny it was considering dropping the ICC objections, publishing the legal advice on Israel and Gaza or restricting or halting arms sales.

Pressure is mounting on the government to halt arms sales on Israel as its assault on Gaza – which has so far killed 39,000 Palestinians – approaches its eleventh month. In particular, the government is under pressure to demonstrate that the legal advice it has received supports its decision to continue arming Israel.

In December, the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq launched a legal challenge to the UK’s decision to continue exporting arms to Israel, supported by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP); Oxfam GB, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International UK have since been granted permission to support the case, the first court hearing of which will be 8-10 October.

“Given the widespread consensus that Israel’s conduct violates international law it is hard to conceive that the advice given to the foreign secretary pointed in any other direction,” GLAN wrote in an update posted to its website in April. The petitioners have since requested that the legal advice be disclosed.

Others are applying pressure through direct action. On Wednesday, activists with Workers for a Free Palestine blockaded the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to protest the UK’s continued supply of arms to Israel, having done the same at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) in May.

Many Whitehall officials are feeling this ethical compromise acutely. In April, DBT officials with the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) wrote to senior civil servants asking to stop work immediately on granting export licences to Israel. The PCS has since indicated it is “seriously considering” taking legal action against the government in order to force it to comply with officials’ requests.

Since becoming foreign secretary three weeks ago, David Lammy has found himself in an awkward position. Having pressed for months for his predecessor David Cameron to publish civil servants’ advice to him on the legality of exporting weapons to Israel, the decision is now Lammy’s to make.

“I will seek to make my decision with full accountability and transparency,” Lammy cryptically told the Commons last week, when asked by Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson whether he’ll commit to publishing the advice.

One legal expert who spoke to Novara Media on condition of anonymity suggested that civil servants may fear that publishing their advice could expose them to prosecution both in the UK and at the Hague, since if the advice indicates their belief that Israel is breaching international law but does not conclude the UK must halt arms sales they may be interpreted as enabling war crimes.

Those within Whitehall doubt the advice will be so explosive, however. “Us civil servants are very good at asking the minister a certain question to get a particular answer from lawyers, not asking the fuller question that might give an answer ministers don’t like,” one official told Novara Media. This type of politicisation of the civil service only serves to erode trust in society.”

“I’d highly doubt a civil servant would ask (because they don’t want the answer), ‘Is Israel committing war crimes?’” they added.

Lammy first wrote to Cameron in mid-March asking him to publish the legal advice after the Observer reported that Alicia Kearns, then chair of the foreign affairs select committee, had told a Tory fundraising event in a leaked recording that the FCDO had received advice saying that Israel had broken international humanitarian law, but had kept it quiet. After several tweets and TV appearances demanding Cameron “come clean”, Lammy formally followed up two weeks later.

“We can’t have a foreign secretary dodging scrutiny on arms sales to Israel,” Lammy told Cameron in May. Ahmed agrees: “There is significant public interest [in publishing the legal advice], particularly given that people need to feel trust and faith in the government’s decision on something so significant as this, the UK govt and our, as citizens’, complicity in serious violations of international humanitarian law including war crimes.”

Yet despite his apparent outrage with Cameron, Lammy was already readying the ground for his own inaction as future foreign secretary, in part by distinguishing “defensive” and “offensive” weapons. “If it’s the case that international humanitarian law has been contravened, then it is absolutely right that offensive arms are suspended to Israel,” Lammy told the BBC in early April. Lammy has since ruled out a blanket ban on arms sales to Israel, saying only offensive weapons would be banned. Lammy also hinted at Israel’s need for defensive weapons in his insistence in a recent Commons debate that “Israel is in a tough neighbourhood and is threatened by those who want it annihilated”, citing both Hamas and Houthi attacks.

Legal experts point out that the distinction between supplying weapons for offensive and defensive purposes is meaningless.

Yasmine Ahmed is the UK director of Human Rights Watch and a former lawyer in the FCDO. “The law doesn’t distinguish between offensive and defensive weapons. All the SELC says is the government can’t licence military equipment if there is a clear risk [that the military equipment might be used to facilitate or carry out a serious violation of IHL].

“If this threshold is reached, you can’t licence the equipment regardless of whether that equipment can also be used in a defensive capacity,” she added. “It’s totally irrelevant.”

“The fact is we’re seeing ongoing attacks, with thousands of Palestinians dead including many children, and the continued use of starvation as a weapon of war. The public deserves to understand, particularly if a decision is made not to suspend arms sales, on what basis that decision is made.”

Lammy – an outspoken member of Labour Friends of Israel who in November told the BBC that Israel’s bombing of a refugee camp “can be legally justified” – has appeared to turn away from Israel in government. On Friday, the foreign secretary announced that the UK would resume funding to the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which had been suspended in January following Israel’s claim – since debunked by the UN – that the agency harboured Hamas operatives.

Lammy also told the Financial Times in February that Labour would consider unilaterally recognising (ie, without Israel or the international community’s agreement) a Palestinian state, extending Labour’s manifesto pledge to do so only as part of a peace process. Lammy’s trip to Israel and Palestine at the start of his term in office is thought to have been a strategic way of avoiding pressure to return to the territory as relations are likely to become more strained.

Several other states, including Canada, Spain, Italy and Australia, have partially or entirely halted arms sales to Israel. The consensus among UK parliamentarians is growing – in March 130 of them signed a letter to Cameron demanding the UK stop all arms exports to Israel. Earlier this month, leftwing Labour MP Zarah Sultana tabled an amendment to the King’s speech calling on the UK to ban arms to Israel.

There is precedent for the UK doing so, though rarely with much transparency. Margaret Thatcher embargoed arms to Israel in 1982 following its invasion of Lebanon, though this only came to light in 2016. In 2002, Tony Blair “imposed a de facto arms embargo”, according to the Guardian, though he did not announce it publicly (officials leaked it). Gordon Brown’s 2009 revoking of five arms licences for spare parts for Sa’ar naval weapons only came to light after an Israeli official announced it to the Times.