Save the Children UK urges for arms embargo on 'Israel'
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The organization has urged the UK to impose an arms embargo on the occupation regime following the increase of the number of massacres against women and children
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Pro-Palestinian demonstrators wave Palestinian flags and hold placards as they protest in Parliament Square in London on February 21, 2024. (AFP)
Save the Children UK has called for the imposition of an arms embargo on "Israel" following the occupation's most recent massacre of women and children in Gaza.
This advocacy by the international children's rights organization came on Thursday following an Israeli airstrike that killed almost a dozen women and children, including 10-year-old quadruplets and their mother.
“We’re absolutely heartbroken to see that six children – including a group of ten-year-old quadruplets, and their mother – are the latest victims of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza,” the organization said on X.
We're absolutely heartbroken to see that six children - including a group of ten-year-old quadruplets, and their mother are the latest victims of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
— Save the Children UK (@savechildrenuk) August 22, 2024
We simply cannot accept the violence that Palestinian children continue to face as normal. https://t.co/f9h9tercHh
“We simply cannot accept the violence that Palestinian children continue to face as normal.”
Save the Children urged the UK government to immediately halt arms sales to "Israel," highlighting the risk of these weapons being used in violations of international humanitarian law.
Since the beginning of "Israel's" genocide in Gaza on October 7, the UK has issued over 100 arms export licenses.
Over the last ten months, the occupation has struck more than 500 schools in Gaza which are being used as shelters to house nearly two million displaced Palestinians.
The occupation regime hit five schools in Gaza City in 10 days in August, killing over 179 people and wounding many more.
New UK government faces more pressure to cease arms sales to 'Israel'
David Lammy, the UK's newly appointed foreign secretary, declared just two weeks after the country's elections this year that the United Kingdom will resume its funding UNRWA, the United Nations organization that looks after Palestinian refugees, following it was baselessly accused by "Israel" of its members partaking in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
The government also declared a week later that it was abandoning its earlier preparations to contest the International Criminal Court's authority to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Security Minister Yoav Gallant due to war crimes by "Israel".
However, the British government has yet to completely commit to the more significant shift that the public is calling for, which is the cessation of arms shipments to "Israel".
Recently, Mark Smith, a counterterrorism official at the British Embassy in Dublin, relayed to his colleagues after submitting his resignation, “Each day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of War Crimes and breaches of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza perpetrated by the State of Israel”.
He added, “There is no justification for the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel, yet somehow it continues. I have raised this at every level in the organization … As a fully cleared officer raising serious concerns of illegality in this Department, to be disregarded in this way is deeply troubling. It is my duty as a public servant to raise this.”
A July YouGov poll found that 58% of Brits are in favor of stopping military supplies to "Israel" during the war on Gaza, with only 18% against. Even more people (78%) are in favor of an immediate ceasefire.
