The UK government and arms industry are both complicit in Israel’s killing of seven aid workers in Gaza, including three British citizens, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), has alleged. The workers were killed by a strike from a Hermes 450 drone manufactured by Israeli-owned company Elbit Systems. The drone is powered by a UK-made R902(W) Wankel engine, produced by Elbit subsidiary UAV Engines Limited in the UK.

Sandi, ‘UK is ‘complicit’ in Israel's killing of British aid workers in Gaza, says CAAT’, Middle East Monitor

An immediate arms embargo on Israel. When I met Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf last month and he unequivocally backed such a move, the case was already overwhelming. Yet this week, the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron doubled down – even as Gaza is razed from the face of the earth, the position was “unchanged”. It should not take the spilling of Western blood to make this point – given the mass slaughter endured by the Palestinian people, including more than 200 aid workers – but even the Israeli military killing three Britons working with World Central Kitchen hasn’t shifted the Government’s position. You can only imagine what would have happened if, say, Iran had blown up an aid convoy in similar circumstances. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the seven aid workers were killed by a Hermes 450 drone, which is powered by a UK-made R902(W) Wankel Engine. That a leaked recording of senior Tory MP Alicia Kearns – the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee – made clear that the Government had received legal advice that Israel is violating international humanitarian law, clear to anyone at this point who isn’t either deceitful or living in a parallel universe. That would necessitate stopping arms sales, as well as the sharing of intelligence. Yet the British government remains determined to continue its complicity with one of the great crimes of our age. […] The Israeli investigation was an absurd whitewash, suggesting a military which describes itself as amongst the world’s most advanced made a “grave mistake” by exterminating the convoy in these circumstances. Well, it gets so much worse. A fascinating piece of investigative journalism in The Telegraph – not words you often read me type – has a sensational finding. The most senior commander in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) dismissed for his role in the attack is a hard-line settler in the West Bank who, in an open letter signed in January, demanded Gaza was deprived of aid. It demanded the Israeli War Cabinet and the IDF chief of staff “do everything in your power” to prevent “humanitarian supplies and the operation of hospitals inside Gaza City”. Here’s another astonishing detail: the retired military officer who led the investigation into the strike is the CEO of the defence firm that makes the drone missiles used in the strike. 

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