THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — A group of human rights organizations argued in court on Monday that the Netherlands should stop shipping F-35 parts to Israel.
Lawyers for Oxfam Novib, Amnesty International and The Rights Forum told The Hague District Court that the Dutch government was complicit in war crimes for continuing to send fighter jet parts to Israel, despite warnings the exports may run afoul of international law.
“The state must immediately stop the delivery of F-35 parts to Israel,” human rights lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, who is representing the organizations, told the court.
The Hague courtroom was completely full. Outside, a small group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered to show support for the case.
The Netherlands is home to one of three F-35 European regional warehouses. The fighter jets are owned by the United States, but since 2019 Woensdrecht Air Base in the south of the country has served as a distribution center for spare parts.
The Israeli Air Force placed an order for parts following the attacks on Oct. 7. The Dutch customs office asked the government if it wanted to go ahead with the order, as military goods require an export license, and was given the go-ahead.
According to Zegveld, those parts have now been used to repair F-35s that are part of the Israeli government's bombing campaign in response to Hamas' Oct 7. attack. “We should not be assisting in this brutal attack on Gaza,” she told reporters ahead of the hearing.
Lawyers for the Netherlands argue that there is no evidence the planes are being used to commit war crimes and that if the Dutch stop sending parts, Israel will simply get them from the United States.
“The government does not know the operational information on which the Israeli makes targets and assessments,” lawyer Reimer Veldhuis argued on behalf of the Dutch state.
Veldhuis went on to say that the Israeli military took precautions to ensure civilians were not harmed, which elicited gasps and boos from some in the courtroom.
The Netherlands has blocked the export of military goods before. Research by Dutch newspaper NRC found that between 2004 and 2020, the government refused to grant an export license to Israel 29 times.
According to Amnesty International, some 12,000 people have died in Gaza since the military operation in repose to the Hamas attacks began. Most of them, the organization says, are women and children.
“The Netherlands is host country of both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court and likes to present itself as a champion of international law. But our government is losing all credibility at this point,” Dagmar Oudshoorn, the director of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International, said in a statement.
The court now has two weeks to issue its decision, which can be appealed.
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