UK still ‘very concerned’ over insufficient aid flow into Gaza
LONDON
Britain remains “very concerned” about the current insufficient aid flow into the Gaza Strip and believes Israel should be pushed “very hard” to allow more aid deliveries, said the UK foreign secretary on Thursday.
In response to Anadolu’s question about continuing arms sales to Israel, David Cameron said that the UK has “a very detailed process” to examine the commitment a country has to international law.
“We go through that detailed legal process and then we have to make a decision based on that legal advice that is consistent with that legal advice, and we are going through that process (on) each occasion,” Cameron said at an event organized by Foreign Press Association London.
Reiterating that Britain is responsible for less than 1% of Israel’s arms imports, he said that overriding that process would be “quite a political decision.”
“And I don’t think it would be the right political decision,” he said, citing Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Israel in April.
On the ongoing situation in the Gaza Strip, Cameron said they continue to monitor the situation “very closely.”
“What I said and I will continue to say that of course we monitor very closely what is happening and we have been particularly concerned about the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he stated.
One of his main tasks in the runup to the UK’s July 4 general elections, he said, is putting “as much pressure as possible” on Israel to open up both Karem Shalom and the port of Ashdod to allow for more aid deliveries into Gaza.
“I have been very concerned and remained very concerned that the performance is not good enough and I want to do better,” he said, adding: “I think we should continue to push them very hard.”
Israel has been widely criticized for letting in only a trickle of aid to Gaza, pushing millions of Palestinians into famine conditions.
Pro-Palestinian groups and the public have blasted Britain over continuing arms export licenses to Israel.
According to the Department for Business and Trade, the UK has issued 108 arms export licenses to Israel since last Oct. 7 – when the Gaza conflict began – while over 300 licenses were still active as of this May.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.
More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 85,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
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