THE HAGUE: A Dutch court on Friday dismissed demands by human rights groups to block the Dutch government from exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, which they said were enabling war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Judges at the District Court in The Hague said they must leave the Dutch government a large degree of freedom when it comes to weighing political and policy issues in deciding on arms exports.

The rights groups, which included the Dutch affiliate of Oxfam, said in their claim that Israel was using F-35 planes for which the Netherlands supplied spare parts in large-scale bombing attacks in Gaza that may constitute war crimes.

In the first ruling on arms exports to Israel by a court worldwide since Oct 7, the Dutch judges found it was likely that F-35s contributed to alleged violations of the laws of war.

“To everyone who has seen the images of the armed conflict, reads the news coverage about them and hears the comments of Israeli ministers about the Israeli reaction to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, it seems evident that there are violations of humanitarian law,” the verdict said.

“We were successful in the sense that the claims by the state that there were no violations in Gaza, or we can’t assess that, has been wiped off the table and (the finding) that the F-35 is used in the war is extremely important,” Liesbeth Zegveld, a lawyer for the rights groups, said, adding that she will almost certainly appeal the case.

The Netherlands houses one of several regional warehouses of US-owned F-35 parts which are then distributed to countries that request them.

While the judges said it was likely that F-35s contributed to possible war crimes, they added that under the terms of the arms export permit they could only rule on the question of whether the government had made a reasonable assessment in allowing exports to continue and said there was no scope for a judge to intervene.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2023