UK voters support ban on arms sales to Israel, poll shows

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters attended the eighth national march for Palestine in London on Feb. 3, 2024. (AN Photo)
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Updated 03 April 2024
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UK voters support ban on arms sales to Israel, poll shows

  • YouGov survey finds 56% of respondents in favor of restrictions
  • Support strongest among Labour voters

LONDON: A majority of voters in Britain support a ban on the sale of arms to Israel, according to a YouGov poll.

The survey of more than 2,000 people was commissioned by Action for Humanity and conducted before Monday’s airstrike by Israeli forces that killed seven aid workers, including three Britons.

The poll, reported by The Guardian on Wednesday, found that 56 percent of respondents favored a ban on the export of arms and spare parts, compared to 17 percent who did not.

Support for a ban was strongest among those planning to vote for Labour in the upcoming elections, with 71 percent in favor versus 9 percent against.

Seventy percent of Liberal Democrat voters support the ban, while among Conservative supporters, just 38 percent were in favor, with 36 percent against it.

In the poll, 59 percent of people said Israel was violating human rights in Gaza, with two out of three Conservative voters thinking that, The Guardian reported.

The findings will be disappointing for Israel, which has historically relied on strong UK support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that his country’s efforts to destroy Hamas as a fighting force were dependent on Western backing.

Some senior Israeli politicians have expressed concerns that Israel is slipping into pariah status on the world stage.

Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, but the deaths of the British, Polish, Canadian and Australian aid workers appear to have created a tipping point for Western powers.

The incident prompted several Conservative politicians on Wednesday to call on the British government to stop exporting arms to Israel.
 


US strikes kill 5 on alleged drug boats in Pacific

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US strikes kill 5 on alleged drug boats in Pacific

WASHINGTON: The US military said it killed on Thursday five more alleged drug traffickers aboard two vessels in the Pacific Ocean, bringing the divisive campaign’s death toll to over 100.
The Trump administration has carried out such strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September but has provided no evidence that the boats are involved in drug trafficking, prompting debate about the operations’ legality.
The latest strikes hit two vessels in international waters that were “engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” US Southern Command said on X.
Three people were killed in the first vessel and two in the second vessel, it said.
The strikes have now killed 104 people, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
During a September operation, the US military launched a second strike that killed survivors of an initial attack on the same vessel, generating accusations of a war crime.
The use of the military for the anti-drug campaign and Trump’s warnings of a potential land strike in Venezuela have also raised the question whether he should seek authorization from Congress.
The House of Representatives rejected two Democratic resolutions on Wednesday aimed at halting the strikes and “hostilities in or against Venezuela” without its authorization.