Gaza used as test lab for British weapons: UK Jews

British Jews have condemned the “UK’s complicity in Israeli war crimes” against Palestinians by selling arms to Tel Aviv at a time of war on a struggling Gaza.

Manchester Jews for Justice for Palestinians have harshly criticized the UK in an open letter and called for an end of the arms trade between the UK and Israel, RT reported.

“We deplore the UK’s complicity in Israeli war crimes, most recently the massacres and destruction of homes and livelihoods in Gaza last summer,” the group wrote in a letter published on the blog Mondoweiss.

“It is well known how Israel has expelled the Palestinian population from their land and enforced a systematic, military and illegal occupation against those that remain. What is less well known is that the UK has been aiding and abetting Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”

The community of Jews living in the UK pointed out that UK export licenses have been granted for over £42 million of UK military hardware and communications equipment since 2010.

The group called on all companies and individuals involved to divest from firms that support the arms trade with Israel.

“The UK need not be complicit in such evident crimes against humanity. Crimes against a people who are mostly children and refugees, a people who need the world to stop turning their backs on the endless catastrophes that the most heavily militarized army in the Middle East has imposed on them.”

In November last year, figures revealed that Britain had approved the sale of arms to Israel worth £7 million in the six months before its offensive on Gaza last summer, including drone parts, combat aircraft and helicopters.

Now Adie Mormech, Human Rights Advocate and University Lecturer in the Gaza Strip, says: “The UK can be complicit; because it is providing diplomatic and political support for what Israel is doing. We have gone down this complete blind alley, which is the peace process, which is really the way in which we continue to allow and give time for Israel to completely colonize the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem (al-Quds), and increase its control over the Palestinian people.”

“They are vetoing United Nationals resolutions. They are continuing to allow support for Israel inside European Union,” Mormech told Press TV’s UK Desk.

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron defended the Israeli regime’s 2014 military aggression against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed in Israel’s 50-day onslaught and over 11,100 others, including nearly 3,380 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people, were injured. Tens of Israelis were also killed during the war.

Source-Press TV