More than 60 MPs and lords want an explanation from the U.K. trade secretary how an illegal arms shipment to Israel was exported from Britain and what will be done about it, John McEvoy reports.
U.K. Trade Secretary Peter Kyle during a business meeting in Beijing in January. (Simon Dawson / No 10/ Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
By John McEvoy
Declassified UK
Over 60 MPs and Lords have demanded answers over illegal shipments of weaponry from Britain to Israel via Belgium.
MPs who have signed the letter include Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon, John McDonnell, and Hannah Spencer, while the Lords include Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and John Hendy KC.
It has also been signed by Abtisam Mohamed MP, who sits on the foreign affairs select committee.
The move comes after Declassified, Belgian NGO Vredesactie, Irish news outlet The Ditch, and Palestinian Youth Movement discovered a suspicious package of military goods bound for Israel in March.
Belgium has strict laws on the transshipment of military items to Israel through its ports and airports, including a ban on overflights carrying weaponry through its airspace.
The shipment was seized by the Belgian authorities, which confirmed that it contained items covered by U.K. export codes for military aircraft and fire control components.
They did not refute that some of the items may have belonged to Moog, a U.S. aerospace firm in Wolverhampton which manufactures trainer aircraft components for the Israeli air force.
[See: UK Jury Hung in Israel Protest Case]
A Belgian government spokesperson told Declassified: “No transit licence request was issued; if it had been, it would have been refused”.
Arms to Israel
Published last week and authored by Steve Witherden MP, the letter is now asking the U.K. authorities to explain how an illegal arms shipment to Israel was exported from Britain.
I’ve written to the Secretary of State for Business & Trade, backed by 60 colleagues, demanding answers after Belgian authorities seized two shipments of UK military equipment bound for Israel in March.
We need an arms embargo on Israel & full transparency on export controls. pic.twitter.com/m8TzqiWm7C
— Steve Witherden MP (@switherdenMP) June 16, 2026
Addressed to Trade Secretary Peter Kyle, it asks for clarification on when the authorities first became aware that U.K.-origin arms were being illegally shipped to Israel.
Declassified understands that the March shipment was not the first instance of U.K. arms bound for Israel being intercepted in Belgium.
The letter further asks whether the Belgian authorities, arms manufacturers and cargo carriers responsible for the shipment have been consulted over the issue.
In addition, it asks whether the Trade Department will subject the responsible arms firms to compliance visits to ensure they are conforming with their legal obligations.
The final question centres on whether the government will commit to examining whether logistics companies operating in the U.K., including UPS and Challenge Airlines, are fully compliant with arms export regulations.
If not, the letter asks whether those logistics companies will be excluded from public procurement processes.
The full letter can be seen below:
John McEvoy is chief reporter for Declassified UK. John is an historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain’s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain’s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.
This article is from Declassified UK.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
