Arley Armfield—A week ago, today Keir Starmer reassured the Independent Alliance that he was ‘well aware of the definition of genocide’.
The Prime Minister, a former Human Rights Adviser and barrister, assured Ayoub Khan that the situation in Israel cannot be labelled a genocide.
The following day The International Criminal Court of Justice (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity.
This has left the Starmer in a very awkward position as it was evident that their stance following the events of October 7 was that Netanyahu had ‘the right’ to cut off energy and water for Palestinians.
The ICC has said: “The Chamber found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowing deprived the civilian populations in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, medicine and medical supplies.”
The government has since admitted in the high court that the decision to continue the sale of F-35 jet engine parts to Israel is down to the relationship they share with the USA.
David Lammy did say before the election that if an arrest warrant was issued by the ICC, the UK would comply if Labour got into power, and No10 has indicated this since the ruling, but no official confirmation has been published or spoken about.
This is likely because by publicly arresting Netanyahu the UK government would be admitting their own complicity in one of the biggest breaches of international law in the 21st century.
Moving on, as positive as the ICC rulings are for Palestine’s future there is still an arms embargo that needs to be implemented on Israel to stop the lack of humanity that is on display in Gaza and the West Bank.
ZAANews 
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