UK risks breaching international law by arming Israel
World
The UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel, Rishi Sunak has been warned. This is repored by Sky News.
Three former Supreme Court justices are among over 600 lawyers and academics who have signed a 17-page letter to warn the present situation in Gaza is "catastrophic".
The government has been facing growing calls to suspend arms exports to Israel after three British aid workers were killed in an airstrike.
John Chapman, Jim Henderson and James Kirby were among seven World Central Kitchen aid workers who died when a convoy they were travelling in was hit on Monday - in what the Israel Defence Forces has called a "grave mistake".
The letter warns that - given the International Court of Justice's opinion that there is a plausible risk of genocide - the UK government is legally obliged to act in preventing it.
The signatories said: "While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue... the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel... falls significantly short of your government's obligations under international law."
Ministers are also urged to work towards a ceasefire and sanction "individuals and entities who have made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians".
The government has been facing growing calls to suspend arms exports to Israel after three British aid workers were killed in an airstrike.
John Chapman, Jim Henderson and James Kirby were among seven World Central Kitchen aid workers who died when a convoy they were travelling in was hit on Monday - in what the Israel Defence Forces has called a "grave mistake".
The letter warns that - given the International Court of Justice's opinion that there is a plausible risk of genocide - the UK government is legally obliged to act in preventing it.
The signatories said: "While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue... the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel... falls significantly short of your government's obligations under international law."
Ministers are also urged to work towards a ceasefire and sanction "individuals and entities who have made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians".
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