TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Britain’s new foreign secretary called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, his second international trip since Labour’s withdrawal of the ceasefire law. resounding victory in previous elections this month.
David Lammy said the ongoing war in Gaza is “intolerable” and stressed in meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders that Britain wants to help with diplomatic efforts “to secure a ceasefire and create the space for a credible and irreversible path to a two-state solution.”
Lammy met the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem on Sunday Benjamin Netanyahu and in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He will meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday. During his visit, Lammy will also meet families of hostages currently held in Gaza who have ties to the UK. He called for the release of all hostages and a dramatic increase in the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
Lammy demanded that Israel stop expanding settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and said the Palestinian Authority must be “reformed and empowered.”
Both Lammy’s Labour Party and the previous Conservative government initially avoided calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war, using phrases such as a “humanitarian pause.” But the language has become stronger. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Netanyahu last week that there was a “clear and urgent need for a ceasefire.”
Labour’s stance on the Gaza war cost it votes in this month’s British election. Although the party won by a landslide, pro-Palestinian independents defeated Labour candidates in several seats with large Muslim populations.
Lammy’s comments came a day after Israel said it Hamas’s dark military commander in a massive attack Saturday in the crowded southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 90 people, including children, according to local health officials.
Top Hamas officials said Sunday that negotiations for a possible ceasefire had not been halted because of the attack. Hamas also denied that Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, the target of the attack, had been killed and said Israel’s “false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre.”
Deif and the top Hamas official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwarare seen by Israel as the main architects of the October 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted 250, prompting the War between Israel and Hamas.
Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,400 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, Israeli authorities said. Ministry of HealthThe ministry makes no distinction between fighters and civilians in its count.
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Jill Lawless in London contributed to the reporting.