Defiant David Cameron defends UK arms sales to Israel hours after Joe Biden threatens to withhold weapons

A defiant Lord Cameron has defended UK arms sales to Israel hours after Joe Biden threatened to withhold weaponsif there is a ground offensive into Rafah.

In highly unsual step, the US president publicly vowed to cut supplies if the heavily populated southern Gaza city is attacked.

Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure, including from within his own party, to immediately suspend arms to Israel amid a growing outcry at the number of civilians killed in its war on Hamas.

Those calls intensified on Wednesday, after the US said it had paused a shipload of bombs bound for Israel amid fears over the country’s plans.

But Mr Biden went further overnight, saying in an interview: “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah… I’m not supplying the weapons.”

Asked if the UK would follow the US’s lead, the foreign secretary insisted arms exports from Britain were very different, in part because they were much smaller in scale and policed by strict rules.

He said: «There’s a very fundamental difference between the US situation and the UK situation.»

«The US is a massive state supplier of weapons to Israel… we do not have a UK government supply of weapons to Israel, we have a number of licences, and I think our defence exports to Israel are responsible for significantly less than 1 per cent of their total.»

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed the Rafah operation will go ahead, saying his country’s forces must hit the city to defeat Hamas fighters there.

On Wednesday a former UK national security adviser criticised Mr Sunak for failing to suspend arms sales to Israel sooner.

Crossbench peer Peter Ricketts said it was unfortunate that Britain had not taken a stand, adding that it should have been “ahead of the US” on