By Richard Burden
While the news from the Middle East is understandably now focusing on the horrors unfolding in Lebanon and the real threat of tit for tat strikes between Israel and Iran escalating into a full-scale regional war, please do not forget the agony which people in Gaza and the West Bank continue to endure.
So if you watch nothing else online today, please look this short video of an American doctor describing the reality of trying to save lives in Gaza amid daily Israeli attacks and the way blockade is preventing the delivery of medicines essential to treat unimaginable pain and save lives.
Our political leaders are rightly now calling for ceasefire. But words are not enough, particularly when the international arms exporters continue to supply Israel with weapons that inflict the suffering described by the doctor in this video.
Most serious, of course, is the impact of $17.9bn worth of arms that have been supplied to Israel by the United States during the past year. But the US is not the only country involved.
While the action of Britain’s new Labour Government in suspending some licences for the export of arms to Israel is welcome, United Kingdom-made components for F35 fighters bombing civilians in Gaza are still finding their way to Israel. The terms of both the UK’s own rules and the international Arms Trade Treaty to which the UK is a signatory require arms export licences to be withheld in all cases where there is a known risk of war crimes being committed. The UK Government should act on those requirements without fear or favour.
The international community must also demonstrate to Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that his government cannot continue to hold up with impunity the medical and other humanitarian aid that the people of Gaza so desperately need. Israel cannot be above international humanitarian law and it must be held to the same standards that we expect of other countries.
Breaches of international law in the Middle East must be met with sanctions, just as Russia is held accountable by the international community for its illegal actions in Ukraine.
Please watch this video and don’t look away.
Richard Burden is a former Labour MP and is a Trustee of the Balfour Project.