The UK should join the EU in considering whether to suspend its trade agreements with Israel in light of breaches of humanitarian law, a group of human rights NGOs including Amnesty International UK, Global Justice Now and ActionAid UK urged on Wednesday, according to the Guardian.

The UK and Israel late last month completed the fourth round of talks on a new free trade agreement, updating one signed in 1995, that will lift barriers in the areas of services innovation and digital trade.

The NGOs say the UK has to review this stance in light of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) provisional findings that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide. They argue that the ICJ has made clear in previous genocide rulings that signatories to the genocide convention such as the UK have a duty to help enforce the orders made against states, and in the case of Israel to prevent crimes against humanity.

They call for the suspension of “trade privileges, agreements and negotiations with Israel, particularly as these agreements are premised on upholding human rights and international law, and they involve trade, investment and cooperation with sectors of the Israeli economy involved in human rights and international humanitarian law violations”.

The NGOs argue, “These are important points of leverage that the UK could and should utilize to try to bring an end to the ongoing serious violations of international law”.