Over 20 Labour MPs back motion calling for ‘ending all military exports to Israel’

In early September, the government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel in a move widely criticised by British Jewish communal leaders. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the decsion was taken because “there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

Another Labour MP who backed the motion accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza in a debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, submitted an urgent question on the situation in Gaza and Lebanon and told MPs: “As Israel cuts off northern Gaza from essential supplies, it continues to strike Palestinian civilians while demanding their displacement. The attacks, such as those on the al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza on Sunday night, show that there is nowhere safe to go.

"The sight of a patient on an IV drip burning to death in the flames of an airstrike on the tents of refugees will be the abiding image of this genocide. The 400,000 or so civilians left without food or supplies in northern Gaza are increasingly subject to airstrike, artillery and small arms fire from Israeli forces. Some 11,500 children have been killed in Gaza in a year: that is one classroom full of children every day for a single year.”

Foreign Minister Annelise Dodds, responding for the government, described the image he referred to as “one of many instances of very disturbing footage that many of us and many of our constituents will have seen” and that the government would “continue to take very seriously our responsibilities when it comes to conducting international humanitarian law assessments in that case or any other such case.”

She went on: “The UK is working with partners to support a path to long-term peace and stability with a two-state solution at its heart. That means a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. We want to be clear: Palestinian statehood is the right of the Palestinian people; it is not in the gift of any neighbour, and it is essential to the long-term security of Israel.”

In October last year, McDonald had the Labour whip suspended for comments at a pro-Palestine rally which the Labour Party said were “deeply offensive”.

He had said: "We won't rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty." A Downing Street spokesperson, then Conservative-run, had said it was "not acceptable" for people to chant "from the river to the sea".

In March this year, McDonald had the whip restored and a Labour spokesperson told the press that, following an investigation, “he had not engaged in conduct that was against the party’s rulebook but reminded him of the importance of elected representatives being mindful not only of what they say in public but how their words may be interpreted, especially in reference to controversial or emotive issues.”