New calls to stop UK arms sales to Israel
THE SNP have called on the UK Government to immediately halt arms sales to Israel amid its Rafah offensive.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said Israel’s rejected ceasefire and attack on Rafah requires “decisive and tangible” action from Westminster.
Israel launched strikes in Rafah on Monday, just hours after Hamas agreed to a Gaza ceasefire.
More than a million people are huddled in tents and overcrowded apartments in the area after fleeing Israel’s military offensive in other parts of the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli tank brigade also seized control of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt yesterday morning, authorities said, moving forward with an offensive in the southern city.
Flynn said that the UK Government is “failing the people of Gaza” and “implicit in the deaths of tens of thousands”.
The SNP previously attempted to table a motion mandating the UK Government to immediately end arms sales to Israel, but it was blocked by the House of Commons.
SNP MPs also signed a letter, calling on the Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch to “immediately suspend export licences for arms transfers to Israel”. The letter was also signed by 134 MPs and Lords from across the political spectrum.
“The attack on Rafah by the Israeli government, as well as their rejection of a ceasefire, requires decisive and tangible action from this UK Government,” he added.
“Right now, the best way to increase diplomatic pressure for peace is to end arms sales to Israel. Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer must back ending arms sales to Israel – it’s time for consensus. “For months, Westminster parties dithered over calling for an immediate ceasefire and now they are doing the same on ending arms sales to Israel.
“The SNP has been clear and consistent – all international efforts need to be made to secure a ceasefire and an important part of that pressure is ending arms sales to Israel immediately.” Elsewhere, Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer said: “The evidence of Israel’s war crimes is overwhelming and unquestionable, and everyone who has chosen to arm and support the Israeli government has made themselves complicit in the killing. The assault on Rafah is a humanitarian disaster in the making and yet another Israeli war crime.
“Israeli forces have shown total contempt for international humanitarian law and the rights of Palestinians. They have used an arsenal of high-tech weaponry to knowingly inflict some of the most horrific crimes of the 21st century, often recording and publishing the evidence of their own crimes for the world to see. No one-can claim they were unaware.”
He added: “The Scottish Government must now immediately move to disqualify every company identified by the UN as complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities.”
The UK Government was approached for comment.