LONDON: An official of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) who has just resigned over arms sales to Israel said that the UK government “may be complicit in war crimes,”.
Mark Smith, who was serving at the British Embassy in Dublin and worked on both arms export licenses and counterterrorism measures, in an email seen by the BBC told colleagues that he had raised concerns “at every level” in the FCDO but received no answers to his queries.
In the email, sent to hundreds of government officials, Smith said “each day” he and others involved in Middle East arms export licensing assessments were seeing “clear and unquestionable examples” of war crimes committed in Gaza by Israeli forces, and there was “no justification for the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel.”
He added the senior members of the Israeli government and military have expressed open genocidal intent.
Smith said whole streets and universities have been demolished in Gaza while humanitarian aid is being blocked and civilians are regularly left with no safe quarter to flee to. He noted the Red Crescent ambulances have been attacked, schools and hospitals are regularly targeted. “These are War Crimes.”
The email said Ministers claim that the UK has one of the most ‘robust and transparent’ weapons export licensing regimes in the world, however, the truth is quite opposite to it.
According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the UK has granted arms export licenses worth $727 million to Israel since 2008.
According to the FCDO, the licenses were placed under review by Foreign Secretary David Lammy after the Labour Party took power in the UK general election on July 4.
In May, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor applied for arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over accusations of war crimes.
