Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the UK government’s decision to suspend some arms export licences to Israel, describing it as a shameful decision that would embolden a genocidal Hamas, Guardian reported.
The Israeli prime minister said his country was at war to also protect British hostages and vowed the UK measures would not prevent it from winning the conflict in Gaza.
In his first intervention since the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, told MPs some arms export licences were being suspended, Netanyahu wrote on X: “This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens.”
He added: “Hamas is holding over 100 hostages, including 5 British citizens. Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas. Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror.
“With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future.”
His remarks ensure a deep diplomatic rift between Israel and the UK is likely, although Britain hasgone to lengths to explain the decision as carefully calibrated and not amounting to a full embargo, let alone a step that would weaken Israel’s security.
Netanyahu is facing unprecedented pressure over claims inside Israel that his intransigence over the ceasefire talks had indirectly led to the deaths of six Israeli hostages at the hands of Hamas.
The Labour government’s decision was facing a growing domestic backlash from all sides, with Boris Johnson accusing Labour of abandoning Israel and asking if it wanted Hamas to win the war in Gaza.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the decision sent the wrong message at the wrong time, while on the left there was growing anger at the loophole that would allow the UK to continue to supply parts to the F-35 fighter jet programme.
Even one of the advocates of the ban, the former national security adviser Peter Ricketts, said he left it to ministers to explain the timing of the announcement so soon after the killing of six Israeli hostages by Hamas.
In a provocative attack, Johnson, the former Conservative prime minister, said on X: “Hamas is still holding many innocent Jewish hostages while Israel tries to prevent a repeat of the 7 October massacre. Why are Lammy and Starmer abandoning Israel? Do they want Hamas to win?”
Phil Rosenberg, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, criticised the government’s decision as sending a “terrible message” in Israel’s “hour of need”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “On the day that those beautiful people were being buried, kidnapped from a music festival like Reading or Glastonbury, the UK decides to send a signal that it’s Israel that it wants to penalise, and that is a terrible, terrible message to be sending both to Israel in its hour of need, also to Hamas about the consequences – where consequences are for the horrific actions that Hamas has taken as a terrorist organisation, but also to other allies and adversaries around the world. So it is the wrong decision taken very much at the wrong time.”
Asked if his decision had upset both sides of the conflict, the defence secretary, John Healey, told Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is a government with a duty to the rule of law. This is not a decision about pleasing any side in this.”
He added that the government remained resolute in Israel’s right to self-defence and the decision “will not have a material impact on Israel’s security”.
Inside the Labour party, the biggest pro-Israeli campaign group, Labour Friends of Israel, did not defend all of the Israeli government’s methods, but said: “Since 7 October, Israel has come under repeated, unprovoked and indiscriminate attack by Iran and its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
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