{"id":701488,"date":"2026-01-17T05:57:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T05:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/701488\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T05:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T05:57:28","slug":"campaign-groups-urge-uk-government-to-suspend-all-arms-exports-to-israel-middle-east-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/701488\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaign groups urge UK government to suspend all arms exports to Israel \u2013 Middle East Monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of civil society organizations on Friday urged the British government to not unpause the current suspension of some 30 licenses, but to suspend all arms exports to Israel, Anadolu reports.<\/p>\n

A few days after Business Secretary Peter Kyle\u2019s remarks, signaling that the government may unblock arms sales to Israel, campaign groups urged the government to not unpause arms export licenses to Israel, but rather to halt all arms exports.<\/p>\n

A joint statement by Campaign Against Arms Trade, Global Justice Now, Global Legal Action Network, International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, and War on Want, said they were \u201cappalled\u201d by the government\u2019s movement toward unblocking arms licenses to Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government\u2019s position was already untenable, temporarily suspending approximately 30 of 350 arms licenses to Israel, amounting to only 8.6% of total licenses,\u201d it noted.<\/p>\n

In September 2024, the British government announced it was suspending 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel following a review that found a \u201cclear risk\u201d that some exports could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.<\/p>\n

Last May, then-British Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended negotiations with Israel on a new free trade deal.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0AOHR UK urges UK Government to impose sanctions on Netanyahu for war crimes and acts of genocide<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Total disregard for peace\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Touching on Kyle\u2019s remarks that he made during an interview with the Jewish Chronicle newspaper, the joint statement noted that this position is \u201ccompletely divorced from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the interview, the business secretary said he wants to see movement toward a \u201csustainable peace\u201d in order for these measures to be considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael\u2019s continued killing of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank demonstrates a total disregard for peace, and a continuation of the genocide of the Palestinian people,\u201d the groups stressed.<\/p>\n

They further noted that there has been little or no improvement to the situation on the ground in relation to the UK government\u2019s own factors for why it implemented an arms export license suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this context, the UK should not only not \u2018unpause\u2019 the current suspension of some 30 licences, but suspend all arms exports to Israel and suspend its existing free trade agreement with Israel,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

The statement also warned that it not only fails to hold Israel to account for its genocide of the Palestinian people, but it also risks demonstrating the UK\u2019s \u201cweak commitment to upholding international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palestinians have accused Israel of repeatedly violating the Oct. 10, 2025 ceasefire that halted Israel\u2019s brutal war that has killed more than 71,000 people, most of them women and children, and injured over 171,000 others since October 2023.<\/p>\n

At least 460 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 1,270 others injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire, according to the Health Ministry.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Israel continues bombing Gaza despite launch of second ceasefire phase<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of civil society organizations on Friday urged the British government to not unpause the current suspension…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-701488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115908905793739699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}