Dutch Court orders halt to F-35 Parts export to Israel
A Dutch demanded the stop of F-35 fighter aircraft parts deliveries to Israel due to concerns about potential breaches of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip
A Dutch court ordered on Monday that deliveries of F-35 fighter aircraft parts to Israel be stopped due to worries that they would be involved in breaches of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip.
Human rights organizations insisted the Appeals Court in The Hague to rule that the transfer of these components had a “clear risk” of encouraging Israeli conduct that violated humanitarian law in its confrontation with Hamas.
Fearing possible breaches of the rules of war in Gaza involving Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, the court ordered the Dutch government to stop exporting more F-35 parts to Israel in less than a week. The District Court in The Hague’s prior position, which considered the case essentially political and outside the jurisdiction of the courts, was broken in this ruling.
The parts in question are held by the United States and are kept in a warehouse in the Netherlands until they are shipped out in accordance with current export agreements to a number of partners, including Israel. On the other hand, the appeals court emphasized how important it is for the Netherlands to abstain from enabling military exports where there is a real possibility of grave breaches of humanitarian law.
Critics contend that a disproportionate number of civilian deaths, thousands of them being children, have resulted from Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Significant numbers of people have died and there is much suffering as a result of the battle, which was started by Hamas’s unprecedented strikes on Israel in 7. Oct.
Official Israeli statistics indicate over 1,160 deaths, primarily civilians, along with about 250 hostages taken by Hamas. There are still a lot of captives in Gaza, and their future is unclear, even though Israel has claimed that many of them have been released.
Source: AFP
