Belgium's Walloon government suspends ammunition exports to Israel over Gaza war, ICJ rulings

Belgium’s Walloon regional government has suspended two licenses for ammunition exports to Israel, an official announcement, reports Anadolu Agency.

In Parliament on Monday, Housing Minister, Christophe Collignon, announced the suspension when answering a question on behalf of Elio Di Rupo, the Minister-President of Wallonia, one of Belgium’s three regions.

Collignon said Di Rupo decided to temporarily suspend two licenses given to the company, PB Clermont, following last month’s International Court of Justice’s provisional rulings on Israel, as well as the “unacceptable deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip”.

He stressed that Wallonia has been “committed since 2009 to not export military materials that would strengthen Israel’s military capacities.”

Two licenses were granted to PB Clermont in early 2023, he said, adding that documents clearly mention the final users of the ammunition produced. “Those are exclusively European countries, including Belgium,” he said, stressing that those materials are exported to the EU or the US after being processed in Israel.

Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since a 7 October attack by Hamas in which Tel Aviv says nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

At least 27,585 Palestinians have been killed and 66,978 others injured in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, according to the Ministry of Health in the enclave.

The Israeli offensive has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

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