UK urged to apply pressure over 130,000 Hezbollah missiles aimed at Israel

Dame Louise Ellman MP has urged Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to put more pressure on Hezbollah, warning that the Lebanon-based militia was arming itself with “precision missiles” aimed at Israel.

The Liverpool Riverside MP, who resigned from the Labour Party earlier this month, urged Raab to work with the United States and European allies to issue a “public warning” to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government over the missiles.

Ellman, 73, who chairs Labour Friends of Israel, said Hezbollah had up to 130,000 missiles “many hidden in houses and among civilian infrastructure in villages in southern Lebanon” and that Iran had supplied the parts for them.

“Hezbollah fired an average of 118 missiles indiscriminately at Israel during the 2006 war… It is estimated it could now fire 1,200 [missiles],” she said, adding: “Hezbollah has repeatedly made clear that its goal is the destruction of Israel.”

In June, Ellman wrote to Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott urging Labour to follow the Conservative Government and support the full proscription of Hezbollah, while the year before she pushed the Metropolitan Police to arrest anyone found to be flying Hezbollah’s flag during the annual Al-Quds Day march in London.

In her letter to Raab this week, she said Hezbollah had fitted GPS devices to “20 to 200” of its missiles to make them more accurate, adding: “Even a small number of precision missiles could to serious damage to Israel, given its size and the density of its population.”

She said if a public warning did not work, Britain should consider “a comprehensive package of tough sanctions” against Hezbollah and Iran.