UK government to suspend arms sales to Israel 'soon' as top lawyer says UK must follow ICJ ruling

The British government is considering suspending arms to Israel as soon as Tuesday over concerns that Israel is breaching international laws in its war on Gaza, according to Israeli and UK media reports.

The possibility has irked the Israeli government according to the British newspaper The Telegraph, which cited unnamed Israeli sources.

It comes off the back of a decision earlier this month from the new Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer to restore aid funding to UN Palestinian agency UNRWA.

If the suspension of arms sales goes ahead it would mark a significant shift in policy from the previous Conservative government who came under pressure to revoke sales after three British aid workers were killed by an Israeli drone strike in Gaza. But then foreign secretary David Cameron insisted that Israel was not breaching international humanitarian law.

British governments have previously suspended sales during previous Israeli offensives dating back as far as 1982 when Beirut came under a large-scale siege by the Israeli military.

The report comes as a top human rights lawyer said the UK must stop arms sales to Israel to ensure compliance with the recent ruling from the world court, which found that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land was illegal.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza was in breach of international law and ordered it to immediately halt and withdraw all settlement activity.

Professor Philipe Sands, a member of Palestine’s legal team for the ICJ case, told The Guardian that the UK should cease arming Israel to comply with the court's 19 July ruling that UN member states should not "render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories".

Sands, who teaches law at University College London, said that the advisory "precludes sale of military material which could be used directly or indirectly to assist Israel in maintain its unlawful occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories".

The landmark ICJ ruling issued a damning verdict on Israel's 57-year-old occupation of Palestinian land, which described the situation in the occupied West Bank as an "apartheid system", and comes as Israel's brutal offensive against Gaza nears its tenth month.

The Gaza war has again returned the spotlight onto Israel’s discriminatory and aggressive policies towards Palestinians and triggered accusations of Israeli crimes against humanity.

Over the course of the war, there have been increasing calls for the UK government to halt authorising weapons or parts of weapons to Israel over concern that it could be used by the Israeli army or air force in its assault on Gaza.

The government has approved over $614 million of weapon sales to Israel since 2015 in so-called single-issue licences, while companies export more under open licences, according to rights groups.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier this month said that his office was carrying out a "comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law".

While he was in opposition, Lammy called on the then Conservative government to suspend arms sales to Israel, particularly in the wake of the Israeli drone attack that killed three British aid workers in Gaza.

Israel is facing accusations in a separate case at the ICJ brought by South Africa accusing it of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the war on Gaza.

The ICJ had been investigating Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territory since 2022, following a UN general assembly resolution that came about after Palestine was authorised to sit at the UN general assembly.

The new Labour government has yet to issue a formal response to the ruling and has said it is being carefully considered.

It is expected that the UN general assembly will hold a vote on the outcome in the coming months. The UK has previously been accused of opposing the ICJ’s hearing of the case on Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Last August the UK submitted a length legal opinion against the case, which was denounced by Palestinian officials and international humanitarian lawyers.

Sands, who has authored books on genocide and war crimes, said that the UK should not vote against the ICJ advisory opinion “if the government is true to its word on respecting international law”.

The Labour led government has committed to recognising a Palestinian state but has not specified a timeline.

Speaking to the House of Commons on 18 July, Lammy said that Palestinians had been “in purgatory for decades” and “denied the state that is their inalienable right”.