London’s High Court has delivered a verdict that many Palestinians view as hollow and potentially deadly. Britain’s highest judges ruled yesterday that the government may lawfully continue exporting F‑35 fighter‑jet components, even as these parts fuel Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, an operation now widely condemned for repeatedly breaching international humanitarian law.

The challenge, brought by Al‑Haq and backed by Oxfam, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, argued that by exempting F‑35 parts from its 2024 arms embargo, the UK was complicit in Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, strikes that have pulverised civilian infrastructure and claimed countless lives. Al‑Haq emphasised that Britain manufactures around 15 percent of each jet’s components, including critical systems such as laser targeting.

The court countered that national security and the integrity of the multinational F‑35 programme fall within the government’s province, not the judiciary’s. Interference, the judges said, would undermine the UK's NATO and US partnerships.

From a Palestinian viewpoint, this ruling serves as state‑sanctioned indifference to their suffering. They argue that by permitting these exports, the UK enables a conveyor belt of destruction that devastates homes, hospitals, schools, and denies Palestinians protection under international law.

Al‑Haq’s Shawan Jabarin made no illusions: this decision is "a setback", but "not the end". He vowed to continue legal and political pressure, calling on the government to finally heed Gaza's daily death toll.

Meanwhile, Gaza reels under relentless bombardment, with strikes killing hundreds daily, including at least 38 more casualties reported yesterday . As humanitarian collapse looms, Palestinians see Britain’s refusal to stem F‑35 exports not as a legal technicality but as a profound moral failure—one that sustains the machinery of war raining artillery on their homes.