Killing of Aid Workers Adds to Pressure on the UK Government to Halt Arms Sales to Israel

Ambulances carrying the bodies of staff members of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, arrive at the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on April 3, 2024, two days after a convoy of the NGO was hit in an Israeli strike as battles continue between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Ambulances carrying the bodies of staff members of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, arrive at the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on April 3, 2024, two days after a convoy of the NGO was hit in an Israeli strike as battles continue between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Killing of Aid Workers Adds to Pressure on the UK Government to Halt Arms Sales to Israel

Ambulances carrying the bodies of staff members of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, arrive at the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on April 3, 2024, two days after a convoy of the NGO was hit in an Israeli strike as battles continue between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Ambulances carrying the bodies of staff members of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, arrive at the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on April 3, 2024, two days after a convoy of the NGO was hit in an Israeli strike as battles continue between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Britain’s main opposition parties demanded Wednesday that the Conservative government publish legal advice it has received on whether Israel has broken international humanitarian law during the war in Gaza. They say the UK should ban weapons sales to Israel if the law has been broken.

Britain is a staunch ally of Israel, but relations have been tested by the mounting death toll of the almost six-month war. Calls for an end to arms exports have escalated since an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, three of them British.

David Lammy, foreign affairs spokesman for the main opposition Labour Party, said “there are very serious accusations that Israel has breached international law.”

He urged the government to “publish the legal advice now.”

“If it says there is a clear risk that UK arms might be used in a serious breach of international humanitarian law, it’s time to suspend the sale of those arms,” Lammy told British broadcasters

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, one of the country’s most senior Labour officials, said: “I don’t understand any justification for not publishing the legal advice that they’ve got.”

“It’s important they publish that legal advice so that we can have confidence that the British government is following international law as well,” Khan told reporters in London.

Two smaller opposition parties, the centrist Liberal Democrats and secessionist Scottish National Party, called on the government to halt arms sales to Israel.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not commit to publishing the legal advice, but said the UK followed a strict “set of rules, regulations and procedures” over licensing arms exports.

“I have been consistently clear with Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that while of course we defend Israel’s right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives — and sadly too many civilians have already lost their lives,” Sunak told The Sun newspaper’s politics podcast.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."