An investigation from Channel 4 News has found that the value of UK arms imported by Israel reached a record high in June of this year. That’s in spite of the government announcing in 2024 that they had halted 29 export licences to Israel. Instead, the investigation found that:
Our analysis of Israel Tax Authority figures shows munitions worth around £400,000 arriving from the UK and passing through Israeli customs in June 2025 – the highest amount in a single month since available records began more than three years ago.
The exact nature of the items isn’t specified in the records, but they were listed under a category that includes bombs, grenades, torpedoes, missiles and mines. It isn’t possible to identify the end user of the munitions from these statistics.
This is at direct odds with the United Nation’s recent determination that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza strip. In May 2025, UN experts also warned that:
Continuing to support Israel materially or politically, especially via arms transfers, and the provision of private military and security services risks complicity in genocide and other serious international crimes.
UK arms Israel in genocide
As the Canary previously reported:
New export licensing figures show that the UK Labour Party government approved licenses for £127.6 million worth of military equipment to Israel in single issue licenses between October to December 2024. This is a massive increase, with the figure in this three-month period totalling more than 2020-2023 combined.
During the course of their investigation, Channel 4 News examined almost 8 million rows of Israel Tax Authority customs data from January 2022 to August 2025.
Iain Overton from Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) wrote that:
International law is explicit: states have a duty not only to refrain from committing genocide but also to prevent it. The International Court of Justice has already ruled that there is a plausible case of genocide underway in Gaza. For the UK to persist with arms exports and military cooperation is to knowingly aid a state accused of the gravest crime in human history.
Overton decried the denigration of the international order:
For decades, British officials have spoken of a “rules-based international order”. Yet when the rules are most severely broken, Britain chooses expediency over principle. Arms sales trump human rights. Strategic alliances outweigh moral clarity.
And, Human Rights Watch director, Yasmine Ahmed, said:
If the UK has any spine on Gaza, it must at least use its political leverage and impose a total arms embargo on Israel.
Featured image via Unsplash/Jonathan Xu
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