UK ‘confident’ in F-35 exports to Israel even as aid into Gaza halted
An Israeli F-35 fighter jet performs during the graduation ceremony of Israeli Air Force pilots at the Hatzerim base in June 2024
Dania Akkad reports in Middle East Eye on 12 March 2025:
The UK is “confident” in its position to continue licensing the export of spare parts that could end up in Israeli F-35 fighter jets even as Israel has halted aid and electricity entering Gaza, the UK’s Middle East minister has said.
Hamish Falconer told Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that even before Israel stopped goods entering the enclave earlier this month, restrictions on items over the winter had made life “very, very difficult indeed” for people in Gaza as temperatures fell.
Tents, sleeping bags in camouflage colours and water purification systems were not allowed into Gaza because Israel deemed that they might be used for military purposes, he said.
Despite repeated calls from the British government “for some time” for Israel to lift its restrictions and moments of progress when the volume had increased, Falconer said not enough aid had gone in and what has entered the Palestinian enclave has been subject to “far-reaching” restrictions.
“It was a question that was very much on our minds as winter came in in Gaza and it was an issue on which we made limited progress, I’m afraid, with the Israeli government,” he said. “There is no neat and easy answer to this. We have, as you say, been calling repeatedly for a lifting of restrictions which has not happened.”
In September, the Labour government suspended around 30 arms export licences to Israel after a review found that UK-made weapons might be used in the violation of international humanitarian law in Gaza. One key factor was the review’s conclusion that Israel had not fulfilled its duty as an occupying power to ensure that supplies essential to the survival of the population in Gaza were allowed in in sufficient quantities.
Falconer explained on Tuesday that, as a result of the assessment, weapons that could be used by Israel offensively had been restricted. However, a specific carve-out was made for F-35 spare parts exported indirectly to Israel because it was “in the interest of international peace and security”, he said.