A Dutch court rejected on Friday demands from human rights groups to prevent the government from exporting spare parts for F-35 aircraft to Israel. The groups argued that the shipment facilitates war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip. Judges in a district court in The Hague stated that they must leave the Dutch government a high degree of freedom regarding political assessments related to arms exports.
Human rights organizations, including the Netherlands branch of Oxfam, claimed that Israel uses the aircraft in attacks on Gaza that result in civilian casualties during extensive bombings, which may amount to war crimes. They emphasized that preventing such occurrences is more important than the Netherlands fulfilling its commercial or political commitments to allied countries.
The Netherlands hosts one of several regional depots for U.S. owned F-35 parts, which are distributed to requesting countries, including Israel. The judges acknowledged the possibility of F-35s being used in the bombing campaign on Gaza and the potential violations of war laws. However, they stated that they could only determine whether the government conducted a proper assessment concerning the continuation of exports, saying, "There is no room for intervention by a summary judge."
Israel denies committing war crimes in its attacks on Gaza, which followed a cross-border attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, resulting in the death of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of about 240 hostages, according to Israeli statistics. Since then, Israeli forces have besieged the coastal territory and have destroyed a significant part of it, with Palestinian health officials confirming nearly 19,000 deaths, along with fears that thousands more could be trapped under the rubble.
