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Geneva – A Danish company equipped the
Israeli planes in 2021 and 2022 that bombed Gaza, killing
more than 100 civilians, including 75 children, said the
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in a statement today. This
requires an urgent investigation into the potential misuse
of Danish equipment in committing egregious human rights
violations including the possibility of war
crimes.
According to recent
disclosures, Denmark’s largest defence company, Terma,
has supplied aircraft parts for the F-35 fighter jets used
during Israel’s two latest bombing operations in Gaza in
May 2021 and August 2022.
Many attacks occurred where
there was no evident military target, resulting in a high
number of losses among civilians, particularly among
children. The
May 2021 Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip
killed 254 Palestinians, including 66 children, 39 women and
17 elderly, according to field research conducted by
Euro-Med Monitor. In May 2022 attack, 31 Palestinian
civilians were killed, including at least 17
children.
Those airstrikes compounded the impact
of a 17-year ongoing, arbitrary, and draconian Israeli
blockade on the Gaza Strip. Such amounts to illegal
collective punishment and disproportionately deprives
Palestinians of their most basic rights, freedoms, and
essential services, leading Gaza’s healthcare system,
economy, and infrastructure to the brink of
collapse.
So far, Israel has received from the United
States 36 of a total of 50 fighter jets, becoming the first
country outside the United States to put the super advanced
aircraft into use. Such use is mainly in the small, besieged
Gaza area inhabited by over 2 million people, one of the
most densely populated areas in the world, aptly described
as “the world’s largest open-air prison”.
The
Danish company developed and produced the underside of the
wings of the planes, the area which holds and drops the
bombs and missiles, as well as 80 other parts of the F-35
combat aircraft. The parts that Terma provides are described
by military experts as essential for the aircraft’s use in
military operations, meaning they are also essential in
committing serious violations of human rights.
Despite
detailed reports showing Israel’s institutionalised regime
of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people,
little or no risk of involvement in human rights violations
was assessed by the Danish defence industry, for which
fighter planes are a multibillion-dollar business. The
military exports gave Terma a turnover last year of over one
billion kroner, a company which currently has more than 800
employees working only on F-35 aircraft.
“To protect
international law and peoples’ concrete lives, there must
be scrutiny and accountability for states and corporations
that profit from supplying arms to countries involved in
apparent war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said
Michela Pugliese, Legal Researcher at the Euro-Med Human
Rights Monitor, “Since 2014, Denmark is bound to the UN
Arms Treaty and, as such, it is obliged to refuse any export
of weapons or weapons’ parts to a country like Israel,
where it is well known that they will be used for grave
breaches of the Geneva Conventions, including intentionally
attacking civilians and civilian
objects”.
Traditionally, the Danish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs has refused military exports to the Israeli
government, due to the risk that the equipment could be used
for the serious violations of human rights perpetrated by
Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza
Strip.
However, things have changed considering
Denmark’s new foreign policy doctrine of “pragmatic
realism.” The government has eased a value-based foreign
policy approach allowing for multiple shortcuts and
indicating that it will no longer control what the products
are used for.
A week ago, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke
Rasmussen lifted the previous ban on arms exports to Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which were imposed in
2018 and 2019 after the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi
and in the backdrop of the Yemeni war.
The assessment
of the risk of involvement in human rights violations,
usually a central parameter when deciding on the export of
weapons and military equipment, is not made when it comes to
“projects which take place in cooperation with EU and NATO
countries”, according to the very
written words of the Danish Foreign Minister
himself.
Consequently, Terma’s exports were made
possible as they were first sent to the USA as part of
Denmark’s participation in the American-led defence
cooperation on the F-35 aircraft, and then to
Israel.
Similarly, Terma’s press manager expressed
the “happiness and pride” in being part of the F-35
programme and making “a significant contribution to
Denmark’s important alliance with the USA and other
countries”.
Civilians are significantly impacted as
a result of this “contribution”. When fighter jet parts
are developed and engineered in Denmark, it allows for the
launch of bombs and missiles over the besieged Gaza Strip,
destroying hospitals, homes, and transport systems, as well
as numerous, innocent, human lives.
Euro-Med Human
Rights Monitor calls on Denmark to immediately put an end to
both direct and indirect export of all kinds of military
equipment to the Israeli government; to acknowledge that
Terma’s deliveries to equip Israeli fighter jets
contribute to committing war crimes in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory and guarantee scrutiny and
accountability; to ensure that Terma’s company undertake
human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate,
and account for both its potential and actual human rights
impacts, as enshrined in the UN Guiding Principles on
Business and Human Rights; and finally, to respect and
fulfil European and international law, in particular the UN
Arms Treaty and the EU’s Joint Declaration on the Arms
Trade, which Denmark has been obliged to follow since
2008.
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