Is a global arms embargo on Israel possible?

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council last week, saying that Israel has carried out acts of genocide in Gaza and should be placed under an international arms embargo.

The UN human rights expert said in her report -  entitled Anatomy of a Genocide – that there were clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

These include killing Palestinians; causing serious bodily or mental harm; and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction” of the population in whole or in part.

The report was released a day after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on 25 March, which the US abstained from, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The UN investigator urged member states to use sanctions and arms embargoes to force the Israeli leadership to change course.

"Providing arms to Israel despite the mounting evidence of grave abuses documented on the ground can make those states complicit in war crimes"

Despite the UNSC motion, Israel shows no sign of compliance. This week, Israeli forces ended a 14-day siege and invasion of the Al-Shifa hospital complex in northern Gaza, leaving behind mass destruction and reports of massacres.

On Monday, Israeli airstrikes killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) - including Australian, British and American citizens - who were bringing food to starving Gazans, while a day earlier Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with a ground invasion of Rafah, the last refuge of some 1.4 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza.

The ICJ and Israel

Albanese’s report, along with her call for disciplinary actions to stem the violence, comes at a time when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is weighing the ongoing genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel.

In late January, the ICJ ordered Israel to take provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide and to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. But, again, the Israeli government has ignored the world court’s interim orders.

The UNSC resolutions and the ICJ’s directives are legally binding, however, the Security Council would need to pass punitive measures against Israel for failing to comply.

Given the crucial evidence of likely genocide, states have obligations to apply necessary measures to ensure Israel abides by international law.

“The obligation to prevent genocide cannot be derogated from,” Lubnah Shomali, a Palestinian human rights defender and member of the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights told The New Arab, underlining that states are “obligated” to implement arms embargoes as well as sanctions, whether military, economic or diplomatic.

“Providing arms to Israel despite the mounting evidence of grave abuses documented on the ground can make those states complicit in war crimes,” Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), told TNA.

In particular, he remarked how Washington continues “to shield” the Jewish state diplomatically and militarily. “It would require a fundamental break of the US’ decades-long policy of protecting Israel for that to change,” Shakir added.

Arms sales to Israel

Tel Aviv has yet to face any concrete consequences for ongoing crimes from its allies, who have continued sending weapons to the occupying power.

Nearly all of Israel’s arms imports are from companies in the United States - its biggest supplier - and Germany, according to the arms transfer database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Other military exporters include the UK - one of the top weapons suppliers - France, Canada, and The Netherlands.

Last week it was reported that US President Joe Biden had quietly approved a new $2.5 billion weapons package to Israel, including 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as part of a continued flow of weaponry to Tel Aviv.

Germany’s arms sales to Israel last year amounted to $350 million, recording a tenfold increase compared to 2022. Most of the weapon exports were approved in the first few weeks after the start of the offensive in Gaza.

"We've seen a push to stop arms sales but no concrete action to date. It's moving too slowly. One would think that the scale of atrocities would have triggered red lines far sooner"

Britain supplies approximately 15% of the components for the F-35s used in Israel's bombardments of Gaza, based on recent data from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). France, meanwhile, made roughly $215 million in arms sales to Israel from 2013 to 2022, according to figures from the French Ministry of Defence, with Marseille-based firm Eurolinks accused of selling Israel components for ammunition used in its Gaza military campaign.

Palestinian rights defender Shomali said she does not expect any positive moves from Western states anytime soon given their “entrenched” role in Israel’s genocide. In her view, direct action initiated by the global solidarity movement and international legal challenges are more valid mechanisms to pursue sanctions and stop arming Israel.

“Military, economic and diplomatic sanctions are not only effective but, in this case, compulsory ways to pressure states to fulfil their obligations.”

Growing calls for an arms embargo

Despite continued sales, there are also mounting calls globally to stop supplying weapons to Israel amid concerns over potential complicity in the rights violations perpetrated in Gaza.

Since 7 October, Israel’s devastating war has killed close to 33,000 people - including 13,000 children - displaced about 85% of the enclave’s population, destroyed or damaged most of its infrastructure, and caused severe shortages of food, water and medicine, leading to conditions of famine. All with a total international failure to protect the Palestinian people.

“We’ve seen a push to stop arms sales but no concrete action to date. It’s moving too slowly,” Shakir commented. “One would think that the scale of atrocities would have triggered red lines far sooner.”

Some countries, however, have taken small steps towards halting arms exports. In the Netherlands, an appeals court ruled in February that the Dutch government must stop the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, citing the significant danger of contributing to breaches of international humanitarian law.

Canada’s foreign minister also recently announced a suspension of arms deliveries to Israel in response to the continued war on Gaza. However, the pledge does not apply to military export permits authorised before 8 January.

The local government of Belgium’s Wallonia region declared in February it had suspended licences to export munitions to Israel following the ICJ ruling, while in the same month, Japanese company Itochu Corporation announced plans to end its partnership with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.

In Britain, government lawyers recently advised that Israel has breached international law, based on leaked comments made by a former Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence official, meaning that the UK has to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay.

Last week, at least 130 UK lawmakers called on the British government to suspend arms sales to Israel in a letter addressed to Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

"It's difficult to see how the [British] government can continue sending weapons to Israel knowing they are being used in the commission of war crimes"

Those calls have only grown stronger since Israel’s killing of seven aid workers, including three British nationals, with three former Supreme Court justices joining more than 600 members of the British legal profession in signing a 17-page letter this week that warned the UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.

The UK is mandated to stop weapons transfers if there is a clear risk that the items might be utilised in serious violations of international humanitarian law.

“It’s difficult to see how the government can continue sending weapons to Israel knowing they are being used in the commission of war crimes,” Victor Kattan, Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham, told the TNA, referring to Britain’s commitment to its international legal obligations, including the Arms Trade Treaty.

Amid growing international pressure against Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza, more than 200 MPs from 12 countries last month signed a joint call for an arms embargo on Israel. The politicians stated in their letter that “an arms embargo has moved beyond a moral necessity to become a legal requirement”.

Kattan said that in the face of a deadlocked UN Security Council, re-establishing special UN bodies such as the Special Committee Against Apartheid and the Group of Three would be a viable way to enforce international law.

“It comes down to state will. States can take steps to apply measures against Israel for committing apartheid against Palestinians as a crime against humanity,” the legal scholar stated, noting, however, that there is no enforceable machinery to get states to abide by international law.

Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis.

Follow her on Twitter: @AlessandraBajec