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David Cameron warned on Sunday that a ban on arms exports to Israel would help Hamas, but the British foreign secretary continued to oppose a major offensive in The southernmost city of Gaza Rafah. He declined to specify any consequences for Israel if advice from the US and UK was not considered.
Labor has drawn a rare dividing line with the government over Gaza, saying the UK must stop sending arms to Israel if it continues with the offensive in Rafah, due to the risk of violating international humanitarian law. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow administrator, told Sky News that the UK should stop arms sales to Israel and said a full-scale offensive against Rafah would be “disastrous, unspeakable”.
Cameron said: “For there to be a major offensive in Rafah, there has to be an absolutely clear plan for how you save lives, how you move people off the road, how you make sure they’re fed, you make sure they have medicine and shelter and everything.” We have not seen such a plan … so we do not support the offensive in this way.” He said he made the points in a conversation with Ron Dermer, a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Friday.
Israel appears to consider Western warnings insufficiently consistent to refrain from chasing the Final Four Hamas battalions believed to be based in Rafah. But Cameron also framed the coming offensive in the context of Hamas’s refusal to accept the ceasefire agreement, saying the real pressure must be on the extremist group.
“Hamas has been offered a deal that would release hundreds of prisoners from Israeli jails, providing a pause in the fighting to get desperately needed aid in Gazaand they don’t accept this deal,” he told Sky News.
Hamas says it has accepted the agreement, but Israel counters that the group last week changed the terms of the deal in unacceptable ways, including making it a permanent ceasefire.
The Foreign Office continues to insist that the large-scale evacuation of Palestinians from Rafah – largely prompted by threats from Israel – does not yet constitute the major offensive it opposes.
The UK’s self-imposed arms export licenses are reviewed every six weeks, meaning Cameron is due to send fresh advice to the business secretary on Wednesday and will now have before him a legal assessment which for the first time takes into account Israel’s killing of three British aid workers on 1 April.
Cameron’s stance on continuing to allow arms exports was hampered by Joe Biden’s administration on Friday releasing a report to Congress saying it is reasonable to assess that US weapons are being used by Israel for committing violations of international humanitarian law.
The US report did not propose a total ban on arms sales, but Biden, the US president, said he was halting the supply of some bombs and artillery because of the attacks on civilian population centers. UK law states that ministers must block the export of weapons if there is a risk that the weapons or components would lead to a serious breach of international humanitarian law.
In a round of broadcast interviews on Sunday, Cameron said ministers acted consistently with legal advice in making decisions to continue arms exports. The Foreign Secretary has so far avoided saying that legal advice had indicated there was no risk of serious breaches of international humanitarian law.
One source had predicted in a private conversation that a ban on sales of offensive weapons was imminent, but this was a matter of debate with Downing Street. The government rejected Labor demands for the advice to be published.
Cameron insisted the UK had not given Israel a clean bill of health. He said: “We had some big promises from Netanyahu a few weeks ago. And we’ve seen some changes that are positive, but not enough.”
He justified the UK’s decision to take a different approach from its close ally, the US, saying: “The United States is a huge, big state supplier of arms to Israel, including 1,000lb [454kg] bombs and all. The UK provides less than 1% of Israel’s weapons and is not a state supplier.
Asked whether the source or scale of the weapons mattered in the enforcement of the law, he said: “It’s an ongoing process that looks at what Israel is doing, looks at humanitarian aid, looks at the treatment of detainees and, above all, looks at the behavior of the Israel Defense Forces.”
“I asked this central question, is there a serious risk of a serious breach of international humanitarian law? The response so far has been that we have allowed export licensing to continue.”He also said he was not interested in sending a political message by banning arms sales.
Cameron said he could not provide an update on the Hamas claim the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell had died in Gaza.
“Like everyone else, I watched the video on Twitter, X, last night that Hamas released of Nadav answering a question about who he is,” he said. “I was watching this video and you just think what callous people they are [Hamas] we have to do this, play with the emotions of the family in this way.
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