By Simon Rocker, April 1, 2010
Britain 'should not sell arms to Israel to be used in the Occupied Territories', a committee has said.
The government should do more to make sure that military components sold by Britain to Israel are not used in the Occupied Territories, a joint parliamentary committee on arms exports has said.
They said it was “regrettable that arms exports to Israel were almost certainly used in Operation Cast Lead” – last year’s campaign against rocket-launchers in Gaza.
“This is in direct contravention to the UK government’s policy that UK arms exports to Israel should not be used in the Occupied Territories,” they said.
They welcomed the fact that the govermment had revoked five licenses for export of equipment to Israel – out of 182 licenses reviewed.
But they added: “Broader lessons must be learned from the post conflict review to ensure that UK arms exports to Israel are not used in the Occupied Territories in future.”
The comments on Israel came in a more wide-ranging report on export controls produced by MPs from four parliamentary committees: business, innovation and skills, defence, foreign affairs and international development.
