Responding to questions in Parliament, including from some Labour MPs and Jeremy Corbyn, the PM ruled out a blanket ban while also supporting Israel’s right to defend itself…reports Asian Lite News
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would “never” ban all arms sales to Israel as he faced down demands from MPs on the first anniversary of the Oct 7 attacks.
Responding to questions in Parliament, including from some Labour MPs and Jeremy Corbyn, the Prime Minister ruled out a blanket ban while also supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.
“If the sale of weapons for defensive use by Israel were banned, that is a position I could not countenance a year after Oct 7. It’s not a position I could countenance in the face of attacks by Iran,” he said.
“The idea that we could say we support Israel’s right to defend herself, and at the same time deprive her of the means to do so, is so wholly inconsistent that it will never be my position.”
Last month, the Government announced that it had suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel after finding a “clear risk” that the equipment could be used to commit serious violations of international law.
Starmer has been under increasing pressure to ban all arms sales to Israel, with some MPs and activists arguing that the Government’s current position does not go far enough.
Responding to his statement in Parliament on Monday, Zarah Sultana, the Labour MP for Coventry South, asked whether the Prime Minister would do what is “morally and legally right” and ban “all arms sales” to Israel, including components for F-35 fighter jets. He said: “No. Banning all sales would mean none for defensive purposes.”
Other Western nations have also faced pressure to ban arms sales to Israel, including France, where Emmanuel Macron, the president, called for a halt to arms deliveries to Israel after it invaded Lebanon.
“I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” Macron said on Saturday. It came as Israel was being attacked on three fronts by terror groups in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon as it marked one year since the Oct 7 massacre.
Hamas launched rockets at border communities in Gaza from around 6.30am, setting off sirens in Kibbutz Kfar Azza, forcing residents who had just begun a memorial service to take cover in a shelter. Meanwhile, Abu Obeida, a Hamas spokesman, promised that the Iran-backed terror group would continue attacking Israel. “The longer [the military operation in Gaza] persists, the greater the risk to the hostages,” he said.
Hezbollah fired more than 140 rockets at northern Israel on Monday, while Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed to have fired two missiles at central Israel.
As Israel continued to pound Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that two Israeli special forces soldiers had been killed fighting on the Lebanese border.
The soldiers were killed in a mortar attack, according to an initial IDF investigation. They were named as Warrant Officer Aviv Magen, 43, from Herut, and Master Sergeant Etay Azulay, 25, from Oranit.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets struck more than 120 targets in southern Lebanon “within an hour”, the IDF said. The Israeli military also conducted a “targeted strike” on the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut, it said.
Starmer told Parliament that a year on from Oct 7, there was “no military solution” to the crisis in the Middle East as he called for greater diplomatic efforts. “Make no mistake, the region can’t take another year of this. All sides must step back from the brink and find the courage of restraint,” he said.
Joe Biden also spoke to Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, promising that the US would “never give up until we bring all of the remaining hostages home safely”. The US president repeated his commitment to the “safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist” and defend itself against Iran-backed terror groups. Israel is expected to launch a “significant” attack on Iran in retaliation for the 200-strong missile attack last week.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told Iran it made a big “mistake” by attacking Israel with ballistic missiles for the second time in six months, but Tehran vowed to give a “firm response” to any retaliatory attack.
ALSO READ: Pope names 21 new cardinals, including one from Ukraine