The UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders has condemned the continued sale of weapons to Israeli regime amid the ongoing genocidal war on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“There exist no moral arguments that can justify the continued sale of weapons to Israel by states that respect the principle of the universality of human rights,” the British daily The Guardian quoted UN rapporteur Mary Lawlor as saying on Thursday.

Saying that Israel has demonstrated over time that it will use such weapons “indiscriminately against Palestinians,” Lawlor noted that any claims by Israel of self-defense in reaction to the October 7 attacks by Hamas have long since been “invalidated” by the disproportionality of the response.

Noting that the concept of proportionality in conflict is included in Article 51 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, however, the UN official stressed that now there are “ideological arguments” for continued weapons sales, “which I can only conclude place the value of Israeli lives over and above the value of Palestinian ones.”

“This is unconscionable,” Lawlor added, recalling that some Western countries including the US, the UK, Germany, France and Canada all highlighted their support for human rights defenders while continuing to arm Israel.

Citing data, she pointed out that between 2013 and 2022, 68 percent of weapons sales to Israel came from the US.

Lawlor mentioned the human rights defenders, journalists and health care workers that have been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave over the past few months, recalling that this is a “war on women and children,” who account for a reported 72 percent of the nearly 32,000 Palestinians deaths in Gaza.

She highlighted UN reports saying that more than 122 journalists and media workers had been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the war started last October.