UK independent MP accuses government of supporting 'war crimes' in Gaza
“I’m afraid that the British government, when these war criminals are brought to justice, will also be indicted for being complicit in these war crimes,” Iqbal Mohamed told the Anadolu news agency.
Mohamed, one of the Independent Alliance group of five MPs, which includes former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, condemned Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
It’s very simple. We need to stop the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, north, south, across the region, in the West Bank, the settlements.
How much more killing should there be before the British government will stop in its direct and indirect support of Israel committing war crimes? They don’t want to call it a genocide. It is a genocide.
They don’t want to call it ethnic cleansing. It is ethnic cleansing. They don’t want to call it mass murder. It is mass murder.
Mohamed demanded that the government to take action against Israel.
We want the government to stop with the talking and start acting. Thirty [arms] licences banned out of 350 is not enough. The parts that go to supply the repair of the F-35s must stop. They are the biggest, most common killing machine.
What will these decision-makers, the prime minister, the foreign secretary, the whole cabinet and the people across the House supporting Israel’s right to commit genocide, what will their children and their grandchildren say when they grow up?”
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Closing Summary
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Israel has launched widespread airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, killing at least nine people in the port city of Hodeidah, and threatened more attacks against the group, which has launched hundreds of missiles at Israel over the past year. There had been reports beforehand that Israel was planning to hit Yemen with force after a recent increase in Houthi attacks, including two in the past week.
All references to Syria’s former ruling Ba’ath party will be removed from the country’s education system, the country’s new education minister said. Speaking to Reuters, Nazir Mohammad al-Qadri added that the country’s new leaders will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the right of girls to learn, saying, “Education is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water … The right to education is not limited to one specific gender. There may be more girls in our schools than boys.”
The UK government has said any new Syrian government needs to build a “secure and peaceful” Syria weeks after its president Bashar al-Assad fled the country. Foreign Office minister Anneliese Dodds said British officials had met with the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Damascus and the UK was giving Syria £61m in aid.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not been defeated in Syria and that Moscow had made proposals to the new rulers in Damascus over Russia’s military bases there. Putin said he had not yet met with Bashar al-Assad but planned to meet him and said he would ask about the fate of missing US reporter Austin Tice
‘Turkish drone’ kills two Turkish journalists in north Syria . A Turkish drone has killed two journalists from Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast while covering the fighting between Ankara-backed militia and US-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria,
Sweden will stop funding UN refugee agency says minister. Sweden announces it will cease its funding of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), opting instead to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via alternative means, the Scandinavian country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, told Swedish broadcaster TV4 on Friday. Israel, which will ban UNRWA’s operations in the country in January, has repeatedly accused the agency of being involved in Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, which precipitated the 13-month-long war in Gaza.
Gaza death toll reaches at least 45,206 45,206 Palestinians have been killed and 107,512 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023 according to the Gaza Health Ministry
The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said it was time to destroy “terrorist” groups that threaten Syria, including the Islamic State group jihadists and Kurdish fighters. “Daesh, the PKK and their affiliates – which threaten the survival of Syria – must be eradicated,” he told journalists after attending a Cairo summit. “It’s time to neutralise the existing terrorist organisations in Syria.”
A report in Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli newspaper, accuses IDF troops of randomly killing Gaza civilians. The popular newspaper, citing testimony from anonymous soldiers in Gaza, described indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians in the territory’s Netzarim Corridor. Soldiers told Haaretz they received orders to fire on “anyone who enters” Netzarim.
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