UK court postpones ruling on F-35 exports to Israel amid Gaza war

The UK's High Court on Monday postponed its decision on a landmark case over the suspension of the export of parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel, with rights groups saying the sale could breach international humanitarian law due to the brutal assault on Gaza.

The court's ruling has been deferred to mid-January after a request from the government's legal team, leading to accusations of an intentional delay as Israel's war on Gaza continues - viewed by many experts as a genocide - where over 43,970 people have been killed, most of them women and children.

The legal challenge, initiated by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and human rights group Al-Haq, is directed against the Department for Business and Trade which approves the export of UK-manufactured parts of Israeli F-35, a fighter plane which has been allegedly used by Israel in its bombardment of Gaza.

"The government has shown today a complete lack of urgency and a willingness to introduce inordinate delays to the proceedings," Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer at GLAN, told The New Arab.

"They're asking for months more time despite us submitting, over the last 11 months of this citation, some 7,000 pages of overwhelming evidence showing Israel's atrocities in Gaza."

The government's main justification for the delay was that the proceedings were "long and hard", said Andrews-Briscoe.

"In the meantime, Gaza is raised and erased by an Israeli army that the UK is facilitating," he added.

In September, the UK government suspended 30 of around 350 arms licences to Israel due to a "clear risk" the weapons might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

It did not, however, suspend the five licences relating to components of the F-35s, which are known to drop the 1,000 and 2,000-pound GBU31 and GBU32 bombs.

"The UN has expressly condemned these bombs as it's impossible to drop them in a place as densely populated as Gaza and for it to be lawful under international humanitarian law," said Andrews-Briscoe.

Monday's court hearing also revealed that on 18 July, the Labour government's Defence Secretary John Healey advised Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds that the country could not suspend F-35 licences "without wide impacts to the whole F-35 programme", given that some of the aircraft components reach Israel indirectly.

Approximately 15 percent of the components in the US-made F-35 are manufactured in the UK, so the British government could play a key role in protecting civilian lives in Gaza.

"A suspension of F-35 licensing, leading to consequent disruption for partner aircraft, even for a brief period, would have a profound impact on international peace and security," as well as US confidence in the UK and NATO, Healey told Reynolds.

The UK government has already determined that F-35 fighters were being used in violation of international humanitarian law, Ahmed Abofoul, legal advisor to Al-Haq, told The New Arab.

"So it's a clear form of complicity to continue providing these parts to Israel," Abofoul said.

Of the 364 UK arms export licences to Israel, including over a hundred that were issued over the last 14 months, a total of 90 go to the Israeli forces, according to GLAN.

These remaining and ongoing licences to the Israeli forces relate to trainer aircraft and other systems which the government had said were "clearly unrelated" to military operations in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank.

Abofoul said that Monday's court hearing was a challenge to the government's total lack of red lines around arms exports to Israel.  

When the hearing resumes in mid-January, GLAN intends to challenge the "prior decisions" in December, April, and May that allowed exports for arms licences to Israel.

"Those decisions have been superseded by the September 02 partial ban, so we are seeking from the court is a declaration of illegality, something that's very much in the public interest given the UK is undermining IHL through its continued decision to export licences in the face of overwhelming evidence about serious war crimes," Abofoul said.

Amnesty, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have backed the ongoing case and provided expert evidence that would support the suspension of F-35 parts exports to Israel.

"We've provided a great deal of evidence to show that, unfortunately, the Israeli authorities lack a commitment to IHL, meaning that arms exports should be stopped," Tom Southerden, programme director for law and human rights at Amnesty told The New Arab.

Emily Apple, a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Arms Trade, also bemoaned the arms sales.

"It's actually really sad that we're here today because successive governments have failed to take the only legal and moral option available to them: suspending arms sales to Israel," she said.