LONDON: The UK’s foreign secretary has been criticized for condemning rocket fire into Israel but not its subsequent bombing of Gaza, which has killed dozens of people — including children — or its injuring of hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem in the days prior.
Dominic Raab’s tweet — which was retweeted by Middle East and North Africa Minister James Cleverly — said the UK “condemns the firing of rockets at Jerusalem and locations within Israel. The ongoing violence in Jerusalem and Gaza must stop. We need an immediate de-escalation on all sides, and end to targeting of civilian populations.”
Roua Naboulsi, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s media and communications officer, told Arab News that it is “unsurprising but nonetheless appalling” that Raab chose to condemn rocket fire from Gaza while “ignoring Israel’s systematic targeting and murder of civilians and children, its ongoing ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, and its body of laws and policies that discriminate against Palestinians and deny them their rights.”
She added: “Human Rights Watch recently concurred that these laws and policies amount to the crime of apartheid. Israel can only practice these crimes with the support and complicity of governments like the UK’s. It’s high time for this to change. The (UK) government must finally speak out against these crimes against humanity and hold Israel accountable.”
After days of violence in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Palestinian militants on Monday fired rockets toward Jerusalem and southern Israel, saying it was punishment for the violence endured by Palestinians in the city.
Amnesty International on Monday said Israel had used “repeated, unwarranted and excessive force” against “largely peaceful Palestinian protesters in recent days” in Jerusalem, resulting in 840 being injured.
Israeli police officers were seen firing tear gas and stun grenades, with several landing inside Al-Aqsa Mosque. Social media footage showed Israeli crowds celebrating as fires raged in the holy site.
British opposition MPs condemned Israel’s bombardment. “Seeing footage of Israeli airstrikes kill men, women and children in Gaza, I send my solidarity, my love and my prayers to the Palestinian people,” tweeted Labour MP Zarah Sultana.
“These brutal attacks must be condemned and Israel’s illegal settlements, occupation, and siege must end.”
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Arab News: “The international community needs to make all the parties to this conflict aware of their obligations. Primarily, Israel should never have been in the process of forcible evictions, the building of settlements and the heavy-handed, violent manner in which it dealt with protests and its aggression outside Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
He said: “Hamas sending rockets into Israel indiscriminately is wrong, the foreign secretary is right to condemn that, but what we know from painful past experience is that Israeli bombing of Gaza isn’t precise against those carrying out the rocketing. What we’ve seen in previous wars is Israel ‘mowing the lawn,’ where it ends up killing hundreds and thousands of Palestinians and destroying huge areas of the Gaza Strip.”
Doyle added: “It’s vital that the international community holds every party to account here. The failure to hold parties to account — especially Israel, which often gets a ‘green light’ for its actions in the past — has led us to the situation we’re in now.”
