Jordan joins calls for weapons embargo on Israel as war intensifies

Jordan has joined international calls for an arms embargo on Israel, in a bid to pressure them to end the over one-year long war on Gaza.

The move follows a similar one by France and Spain this month.

Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said on the social media platform X that Israel "would not have been able to launch all these aggressions…had it not been for the impunity with which the International community continues to provide them, and the weapons that many countries are still sending them".

He added that Israel would not stop its war crimes in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon unless an arms embargo is imposed, calling for the Israeli prime minister, and his “radical extremist ministers” to be held accountable.

Safadi has called on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to ban weapons sales to Israel.

He highlighted that two members of the UN peacekeeping body in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, were wounded in an Israeli strike last week, yet this still did not pave the way for a ban on weapons to Israel.

Safadi has been outspoken over Israel’s war on Gaza since the start of it in October 2023, denouncing the onslaught which has caused destruction across the enclave.

On 8 October, the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan expressed solidarity with Lebanon amidst Israel's widening offensive. 

"We condemn the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, we condemn Israel's shelling of the Lebanese capital, we condemn Israel's killing of Lebanese citizens," Safadi said at a news conference in Cairo.

Last week, France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, and Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, both issued similar calls for bans on arms to Israel.

In July, the UK government said it would also cut some weapons deliveries to Israel, while Germany said it had decreased its supply of arms this year. The two countries, as well as Israel's main benefactor the US, still continue to arm Israel however.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 42,175 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 98,336 others in the same time frame. The war has levelled entire neighbourhoods and utterly devastated the territory