THOUSANDS of pro-Palestine activists will form a human chain around Parliament tonight to demand the new government stop enabling Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.
The activists are urging Sir Keir Starmer’s government to halt arms exports to Israel and take action to force a ceasefire.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) estimates that the value of arms exports to Israel is twice as high as the government claims — at least £1 billion since 2015.
Government figures show that they have issued 108 arms export licences since October 7, when a Hamas cross-border raid prompted the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy failed to even mention arms exports during his visit to Israel earlier this week, prompting CAAT to deem his calls for a ceasefire “meaningless.”
Just hours after Israel murdered over 90 Palestinians in a humanitarian “safe zone” at the weekend, Mr Lammy posed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr Netanyahu, along with his defence minister Yoav Gallant, faces an arrest warrant at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Israeli newspaper Maariv has reported that Mr Lammy has decided not to withdraw Britain’s objection to the ICC’s application for the warrant.
The previous Conservative government challenged the ICC on whether it had any jurisdiction over Israeli nationals in May.
Labour MPs Richard Burgon and Imran Hussain have put forward a parliamentary motion calling on the new government to drop the challenge.
Mr Burgon MP said: “This cynical Tory attempt to hinder the International Criminal Court’s work not only risks undermining accountability for war crimes in Gaza but also weakens the wider rule of law and international justice as a whole.”
“The new Labour government now has the opportunity to chart a new course, one that respects international law, by dropping this challenge.”
Following the King’s Speech, which failed to directly mention a ceasefire, Labour MP for Coventry South Zarah Sultana tabled an amendment calling for a halt to the arms sales.
The amendment pointed out that even Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair’s governments had previously suspended arms sales.
The official death toll in Gaza currently tops 38,000, although the Lancet medical journal estimates it could be as high as 186,000, taking into account bodies lost under rubble and indirect deaths caused by disease and starvation caused by the destruction of infrastructure.
Tonight’s protest has been organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and will be joined by groups including Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Ahead of the action, PSC director Ben Jamal said that if the government is “truly committed to the upholding of international law and rights,” it will restore funding to UNRWA, publish the legal advice relating to the sale of weapons to Israel and act to end it, and support all actions in the ICJ and the ICC to hold Israel to account for its war crimes in Gaza.
He said: “The linking of hands around Parliament will remind all new MPs of the huge body of public opinion in support of these demands.”
