Military Co-operation with Israel
Debate between Adnan Hussain and Shockat Adam(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
Does my hon. Friend agree that allying with Israel while it carries out a genocide will bring about the end of the international world order as we know it?
Shockat Adam
I completely concur with the hon. Member’s timely intervention. The Government claim that they provide intelligence only when they are satisfied that it will be used in compliance with international law, but what independent due diligence has been conducted to verify that? If hundreds of UK flights have taken place over Gaza, what have we witnessed? What crimes, if any, have we seen? In the light of what happened this morning, why has the RAF continued to deploy Shadow R1 surveillance flights towards Gaza, when a stipulation of the ceasefire explicitly forbids surveillance operations? Is that not a violation of the spirit of the ceasefire agreement? Can the Minister confirm that the Israeli armed forces will not use surveillance supplied by the RAF flights during a hostage exchange in future attacks on Gaza?
The war has taken the lives of an unprecedented number of aid workers, including three British nationals who were killed while working with the World Central Kitchen humanitarian convoy. Their families have repeatedly requested video footage from our own Shadow R1 surveillance aircraft, which was operating above Gaza at the time. The Government have refused to release it. Similarly, on 27 May, when at least 45 Palestinians were killed in Rafah, another UK surveillance aircraft was in operation. Again, the footage has not been released. Why? What is being hidden, if anything? If we are confident in our innocence, why the secrecy?
Finally, there is now mounting suspicion and evidence that UK facilities in Gibraltar are being used for the facilitation of armed shipments, harbour services, and jet fuel supplies for vessels transporting weapons from the US to Israel. Can the Minister please clarify the usage of Gibraltar in the war effort?
We must confront the bigger picture. The UK helped to build the modern international legal order, but we risk dismantling it today. International law is not a game of pick and mix, where we enforce it in one case —namely African despots—and ignore it in another. By allowing Israeli exceptionalism, we threaten to undermine the very concept of international law itself.