Friends call for end of weapons sales to Israel
‘Deliberately shrouded in secrecy.’ The transfers of weaponry from the US to Israel, according to American Friends Service Committee.
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has reiterated its call for the UK government to suspend arms licences to Israel immediately. The demand came last week after it was revealed that seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.
Campaign groups have claimed that the UK government is complicit in the deaths. ‘It has had every opportunity to impose an arms embargo and has refused to do so,’ said Emily Apple, spokesperson for Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), which said that the aid workers, including three UK citizens, were killed by a strike from an Elbit Systems Hermes 450 drone. This may have contained British-made parts, campaigners have claimed. ‘Since 2015, the UK has licensed £487m worth of weapons to Israel. However, this does not include equipment exported via open licences. In particular, 15% of the value of every US-made F-35 combat aircraft, which Israel uses to bomb Gaza, is made in the UK,’ said CAAT.
Meanwhile the Quaker organisation American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has published a list of US companies that have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment. The listed weaponry has been used in its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria between October 2023 and January 2024.
‘Shortly after Oct 7, the US government started transferring massive amounts of weapons to Israel,’ AFSC said. ‘By December 25, Israel received more than 10,000 tons of weapons in 244 cargo planes and 20 ships from the US. These transfers included more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month and a half.’
These transfers have been ‘deliberately shrouded in secrecy’, claimed AFSC. The list is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade. It can be viewed at: https://afsc.org/companies-2023-attack-gaza.
