Rights groups challenging the UK government over weapons sales to Israel say they are seeking a court order to halt all arms exports after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant.

The Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) warned the British government that it is "now arming suspected war criminals who have been indicted by the world’s pre-eminent criminal court", Middle East Eye reported. 

The groups highlighted that the ICC's three-judge pre-trial panel found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that, amongst other alleged crimes, both men intentionally starved civilians in Gaza for at least eight months.

They also pointed to findings that the leaders had intentionally limited or prevented medical supplies from getting into the Gaza Strip, forcing doctors to operate and carry out amputations, including on children, without anesthetics.