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LONDON: The UK government is failing people in Gaza by continuing to allow parts manufactured for the F-35 jet program be used by the Israeli military, a British surgeon has said.

Prof. Nick Maynard of Oxford University told a two-day tribunal in London that he had seen first-hand the damage done by Israel in Gaza, especially to hospitals, and that the UK’s inaction on stopping the supply of parts amounts to complicity in attacks on innocent civilians.

“I’ve been in these hospitals, I’ve had unlimited access to every square inch of these hospitals and it is inconceivable to me that they are being used as Hamas command centers,” he said.

“This propaganda has been repeated by our media, been repeated by our government, yet there is no verifiable, remotely credible evidence to support these contentions.”

The tribunal — chaired by Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the governing Labour Party — is examining allegations of genocide, war crimes, and the UK’s involvement in atrocities committed in Gaza.

Corbyn opened the tribunal saying: “The truth needs to be told and information needs to be provided, and if Parliament won’t effectively inquire into what is going on, then the tribunal might be able to do so.”

Maynard said he had provided evidence to the UK government of deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure by Israel, and how bullet-wound patterns in children and teenagers brought to hospitals suggested they were being targeted.

“This daily clustering of injuries to particular body parts was beyond coincidence … It was clear evidence of target practice by Israeli soldiers on these young teenage boys,” he added.

The tribunal also heard testimony from Dr. Victoria Rose, a consultant plastic surgeon at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London.

Rose, who has worked extensively treating people in Gaza, told the tribunal that she had been forced to operate on children less than 10 years old without anesthetic, and that Israel was blocking access to the enclave for up to 90 percent of medics, as well as confiscating supplies from those given approval to enter.

She said patients she had operated on included an 18-month-old with 15 percent burns across her body, and a 5-year-old who had her leg blown off.

Rose noted that food in the enclave was scarce, and that she had lost half a stone in less than a month while working there.

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, said UK government officials could be held responsible for failing to help end the occupation of Palestine by maintaining trade links, intelligence sharing and arms exports to Israel.

In June, the High Court in London ruled that the continued export of parts for the F-35 to Israel was lawful.

UK manufacturers are responsible for around 15 percent of parts that go into the elite jet fighter.

LISBON: Portuguese police said on Friday that three Britons were among the 16 killed in a funicular railway crash in Lisbon, as the mangled wreckage was removed for further analysis to establish the cause of the accident.
Portugal is reeling from a tragedy that Prime Minister Luis Montenegro described as one of the greatest in its recent history and that threatens to dent confidence in the tourism industry, which in Lisbon depends on vintage attractions such as the 140-year-old Gloria railway.
After coroners identified more bodies, police updated the list of fatalities that now includes five Portuguese citizens, three Britons, two South Koreans, two Canadians, and one from each of France, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States.
They released no names or other details. More than 20 people were injured.
Police said that a German citizen who had been presumed dead was in fact alive in a hospital. Local media had said that a German father had died and a mother was seriously hurt while their 3-year-old child suffered minor injuries.
The German foreign ministry said at least three German nationals were in hospital.
A preliminary report on the accident will take six weeks to complete, according to Portuguese authorities. While they do not rule out any possible cause, police sources told the Publico daily there were no signs of foul play.
The crashed car’s twin at the bottom of the steep 265-meter slope was also removed and will be studied by experts.
The two cars, each capable of carrying around 40 people, alternately climb the slope and descend, one helping to pull the other up, as electric motors drive the cable linking them.
That traction cable snapped, apparently at or near the connection to the bottom of the upper car, according to two experts consulted by Reuters who pored over the video footage.
Seemingly unable to check its descent, the carriage entered a sharp bend in the street too fast, plowing into the cobblestone pavement and crashing into a building.
The municipal transport company Carris has said “all maintenance protocols have been carried out,” including monthly and weekly maintenance and daily inspections, the latest just hours before the incident with no faults detected.
“We cannot assume that the problem was with the cable,” Carris CEO Pedro Bogas said on Thursday.
The line connects Lisbon’s downtown area near the Restauradores Square with the Bairro Alto and transports around 3 million people a year.