UK Prime Minister David Cameron is being pressured by the shadow UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, to publish the Foreign Office formal legal advice on whether "Israel" is breaching international humanitarian law in Gaza after two human rights groups were permitted an oral hearing to seek a judicial review of the government’s refusal to ban arms exports to "Israel".

“Given the gravity of the situation in Gaza, the degree of public and parliamentary interest and the risks to the credibility of the UK’s export controls regime, there is a compelling case to publish the government’s legal advice,” Lammy wrote in a letter to Cameron, adding that licenses for arms exports should not be granted if “there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law."

The two legal groups – Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Al-Haq – are separately preparing for an oral hearing to ask permission for a judicial review of the government’s refusal to stop sending arms to "Israel". 

UK government legal advice is not usually published, by precedent, but the Labour Party sees it is not possible to conduct a debate on Gaza without full access to the advice.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said earlier his week that Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) was being allegedly checked, but the issues involved were “complex”, confirming, however, that “everyone agrees that people are starving in Gaza." Still, he refused to state that "Israel" was violating IHL since he claimed there were “very serious doubts” about the term “deliberate starvation” in this context.

The oral hearing is expected to occur in weeks after a written request for permission was rejected last month by Justice Eyre.

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Back in December, the trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, decided that “there is not at present a clear risk that items exported to the Israel Defense Forces might be used to commit a serious violation of IHL" but the Foreign Office papers obtained after GLAN’s written request show an internal process that is rigged and extremely limited.

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To comply or not to comply?

According to an internal Foreign Office memo written on November 10, it states that “without accurate information on real-time IDF decision-making we have been unable to make a case-by-case assessment on Israel’s compliance with IHL for specific strikes or ground operations during the current conflict in Gaza."

Evidence of war crimes assembled by Amnesty International, including attacks on hospitals and schools, were rejected on the basis that the UK could not identify why "Israel" acted as it did in an individual strike. This prompted GLAN to call the department's statement out, saying that this means that as long as a theoretical justification exists for an airstrike, "Israel" has been presumed to be acting under international law. 

GLAN revealed that the suggestion by the Foreign Office to continue selling arms was only fortified after it received generalized assurances from the Israeli embassy about its alleged plans to act under international law.

Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer with GLAN, said, “If a state fails to distinguish military and civilian objects, or to take reasonable precautions or to make a proper proportionality assessment, that amounts to a violation and it’s immaterial whether or not they intended to cause such harm. This is a text book case of the war crime of starvation of individuals as a method of warfare.”

Ahmed Abofoul, a legal officer at Al-Haq and a longtime former resident of Gaza, said, “The level of destruction removes any doubt around proportionality. Destroying 70% of Gaza’s residential units does not indicate any distinguishable targeting... What else does the British government need to understand that this is not about legitimate targets or distinguishing between civilians and Hamas? This is about making Gaza uninhabitable, and forcing civilians to leave their homes.”

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“History will not be kind to the UK government’s position because it’s not only a distorted interpretation of IHL that is causing massive loss of life, it’s also destroying the very notion of international law that has, to a certain extent, provided somewhat stability in the world.”

Even though Cameron has directly addressed "Israel's" breach of the rules of war and emphasized its accountability as the occupying power, he called for the removal of the Hamas leadership from Gaza, along with dismantling its infrastructure for a sustainable long-term ceasefire.

He also insisted that the UK recognizing Palestine as a state "should [not] happen" in the meantime.