Jet wash
Defence sales , Issue 1650 AS ISRAEL's fleet of F-35 fighter jets unleash their indiscriminate payloads over Gaza's starving population, Keir Starmer's threat to take "concrete action" against the Israeli government for its "egregious" offensive will have offered little comfort.

Just four days before the PM joined France's Emmanuel Macron and Canada's Mark Carney in calling on Benjamin Netanyahu to end the horror or face – limited – consequences, his government's lawyers were making closing arguments against a high court challenge to a loophole which allows shipments of vital components to keep the warplanes flying.

Last September, foreign secretary David Lammy announced the suspension of 30 of the 350 military licences that might be used to "commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law", acknowledging that such transgressions were a reality.

However, it carved out an exception for the stealth fighter parts, sold to seven countries including Israel under the global F-35 programme, a trade worth billions to the UK economy, with an estimated £360m coming directly from sales to Israel over the past decade.

Urgent call
Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which launched a judicial review into the sales, say the government must now halt the exports having acknowledged the humanitarian crimes being committed with them, rather than waiting for a ruling that may take months.

In the 24 hours after Starmer's ultimatum, another 45 people were reportedly killed by Israeli airstrikes over residential buildings.

In court, government lawyers insisted the UK could not single out Israel without shutting down the entire international F-35 pool, creating a "serious risk to peace and security". Not true, say campaigners, as every component is traceable.

The government lawyers also denied any risk of breaching the UK's obligations under domestic laws or international conventions, telling the judge there was no court finding of war crimes or genocidal intent.

Into the breaches
GLAN lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe said the organisation had presented irrefutable evidence to the court of war crimes, including a grandmother and five-year-old boy, both shot dead as they waved white flags, and testimonies from British medics, one of whom said he was mainly seeing children shot in the heart and head.

"Arguing that countries can wait until a genocide is proven before halting sales guts the Genocide Convention of any powers to prevent one," she said later outside court, adding that government lawyers claimed they were being asked to accept a "touchy-feely lesser standard of breach".

"That's a direct quote," she said. "We were astounded by the duplicity of the government. When we presented 100 pages of statements by Israeli officials showing genocidal intent, they dismissed it as political posturing aimed at a domestic audience. Yet days later Keir Starmer condemned the ‘abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government' and said their policy of destroying Gaza to force the permanent displacement of its people was a breach of international humanitarian law.

"In light of the government's change of policy, how can they possibly justify continuing these sales?"

Dr Halima Begum, CEO of Oxfam GB, which backed the case along with Amnesty International, added: "This case has been ongoing for 17 months, in which time tens of thousands of people have been killed. The government doesn't have to wait for the court's decision to suspend all such arms sales. It could decide to act decisively now, before many more lives are lost."