Dutch court orders Netherlands to stop delivery of US-owned F-35 parts to Israel

A Dutch appeals court orders the Dutch government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel within seven days, upholding an appeal by human rights organizations.

“It is undeniable that there is a clear risk the exported F-35 parts are used in serious violations of international humanitarian law,” the court says.

The US-owned F-35 parts are stored at a warehouse in the Netherlands and then shipped to several partners, including Israel, via existing export agreements.

A group of human rights organizations brought the case, arguing that supplying the parts contributes to alleged violations of international law by Israel in its war with Hamas.

Dutch authorities have said in the past it is not clear whether they even have the power to intervene in the deliveries, part of a US-run operation that supplies parts to all F-35 partners.

Government lawyers also argued that if the Dutch did not supply the parts from the warehouse based in the Netherlands, Israel could easily procure them elsewhere.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive, aimed at eliminating Hamas, after the terror group’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. The vast majority of those killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — including children and the elderly — many of them massacred amid brutal atrocities.