UK legislators call for suspension of arms sales to Israel
More than 130 parliamentarians in the United Kingdom have urged the government to immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfers to Israel.
In a letter – coordinated by Labour MP Zarah Sultana – the group of cross-party legislators noted instances in 2009 and 2014 when the UK government halted or threatened to suspend weapons exports, and said, “Today, the scale of violence committed by the Israeli military is vastly more deadly, but the government has failed to act.”
The letter was signed by 107 MPs from the Labour, Scottish National, Green and Liberal Democratic parties, as well as 27 members of the House of Lords.
We must not be complicit in Israel's war crimes.
But Israel uses British-made arms in Gaza & our government still sells it weapons.
That's why today – alongside 134 MPs & Lords from Labour, the Conservatives, SNP, Lib Dems & more – I have called for arms sales to be suspended. pic.twitter.com/Ietyq9y3ny
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 27, 2024
Minor correction, Correct title would be "We must stop being complicit in Israel's war crimes"
British-Palestinian man threatens legal action over UK decision to halt UNRWA funding
A British-Palestinian man whose parents live in Gaza has threatened legal action against the UK government over its decision to suspend funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), a campaign group has announced.
The unnamed man issued a pre-action letter to the UK’s Foreign Office on Tuesday saying he would challenge the decision in court if the government does not restore funding to UNRWA by April 2, according to a statement by the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).
The complainant was motivated by a “desperate bid to protect his family”, who are UNRWA-registered refugees and are completely reliant on aid from the agency, the statement said.
The UK government suspended funding for UNRWA in January after Israel accused some 12 of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza of involvement in Hamas’s October 7 attacks. UNRWA said Israel has yet to provide evidence to supports its allegations. Many countries including Canada, Australia, Finland and Sweden have since resumed their contributions to the UN agency.
German bank freezes account of anti-Zionist Jewish group
The Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, a German campaign group, says the Berliner Sparkasse bank has frozen its accounts without explanation and asked it to submit a list of its members with their full names and addresses.
“Why should this information be important to the Berliner Sparkasse? It sounds more like a question that might be asked by an intelligence service or the police, who have been politically persecuting us as a Jewish organisation for some time,” the group said in a statement.
The Jewish Voice – which describes Israel’s war on Gaza as genocide – said its previous account with the Bank for Social Economy was closed in 2019 because of its support for the BDS Movement.
“We are taking legal action against the arbitrary, politically motivated freezing of our account, which is unacceptable in a democracy,” the group added.
New scrutiny over Google, Amazon’s billion-dollar contract with Israel gov’t
Amid the war in Gaza, scrutiny is intensifying over Amazon and Google’s $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government to provide it with cloud computing services.
The contract, called Project Nimbus, provides Israel’s military with cutting-edge AI and machine learning features, which critics fear are being used to expand illegal surveillance on Palestinians in the occupied territory.
