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Greg Hands, the Trade Secretary, said the British government would not “hesitate” to revoke weapons licenses for Israel (Alamy)
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The Commerce Ministry would not “hesitate” to revoke weapons licenses to Israel if evidence presented itself, a ministry minister has told PoliticsHome.
Greg Hands, the Commerce Secretary, said the government and State Department were watching the war in the Middle East very closely in light of growing calls for an arms embargo in Israel in response to the major numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza.
“While we have great concerns about what is happening on the humanitarian side in Gaza, the policy here in this area has not changed,” he said.
“But the government continues to monitor the situation in Gaza very closely and on an extremely regular basis. We will not hesitate to revoke export licenses if the evidence were presented. But at the moment the UK government’s policy is unchanged.”
Countries purchasing military equipment from Britain must meet a series of criteria, including compliance with international humanitarian law. Since the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel, the government has said that Israel has the right to defend itself within the limits of this international framework.
Britain has sold £442 million worth of arms to Israel since 2015, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade, a pressure group that wants to end the international arms trade.
David Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, has said he has looked at the latest legal advice from the Foreign Office on whether Israel is complying with international humanitarian law. On Wednesday, the Foreign Secretary confirmed that Britain would continue to sell weapons to Israel for the time being.
Hands told PoliticsHome data on new export licenses issued to Israel were listed in a publicly available government database. The data was last updated in January this year and currently provides quarterly licensing statistics through June 2023.
“Approving a license does not necessarily mean that the arms export, or the licensed product, or the control products, will then be exported,” Hands explains.
Since Hamas’ terrorist attack in southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,200 people, 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory attacks by Israel in Gaza. Much of the region’s infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, has been destroyed. Nearly 200 aid workers, including three Britons, have been killed in Gaza, according to the UN.
More than 100 Israeli hostages are also currently being held by Hamas in Gaza. Under its own laws, Britain would be obliged to halt arms exports to Israel if they are believed to have broken international law, or risk being seen as facilitating war crimes in a country to which it was exporting weapons.
Britain and Israel have begun negotiations on a new free trade deal in 2022 with a focus on services. The new deal completed its fourth round of negotiations in February, with a fifth round expected to take place in due course.
Hands said trade talks between the two countries are continuing despite the growing humanitarian crisis. “I cannot comment on the current trade negotiations, but we have set out our objectives to secure a trade deal with Israel,” he added.
The Commerce Secretary also visited Washington this week and met with US trade representatives in the capital. The government has signed eight individual agreements with US states representing a quarter of US GDP.
Hands said the department is looking to make further deals with California, Colorado and Illinois. However, he could not guarantee that such agreements would be concluded before the next elections, which are due before the end of this year.
“I am not putting a timetable on the negotiations as to when they will be concluded. We have a very good track record of delivering high-quality agreements on time,” he said. “I remain confident in the department’s ability to continue to do that.”
He declined to comment on whether a second Trump or Biden presidency after the next election would be better for Britain.
“We have a long tradition in Britain of working with the US government, with different parties and different presidents. That’s something Britain has always been very, very successful at.”
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