\n<\/p>\n
UK-Israeli relations have plunged to their worst state for decades after the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, suspended negotiations over a new free trade deal, saying Israel\u2019s cabinet ministers\u2019 calls to \u201cpurify Gaza\u201d by expelling Palestinians were repellant, monstrous and extremist.<\/p>\n
He also said wider talks about a future bilateral strategic roadmap with Israel were also being reviewed.<\/p>\n
Lammy condemned Israel\u2019s refusal to allow thousands of aid trucks access to starving Palestinians and said Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians was \u201can affront to the values of the British people\u201d and \u201cincompatible with the principles that underpin the UK-Israeli bilateral relationship\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unleashing language he has not used since the latest Gaza conflict began, Lammy said the further planned major military incursion into Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces was \u201cmorally unjustifiable, wholly disproportionate and utterly counter-productive\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sounding genuinely outraged with the government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Lammy said: \u201cWe are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict. Netanyahu\u2019s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the Strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s foreign ministry accused the UK of having an anti-Israel obsession.<\/p>\n
Responding to the suspension of trade talks, Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said: \u201cIf, due to anti-Israel obsession and domestic political considerations, the British government is willing to harm the British economy \u2013 that is its own prerogative.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the sanctions in relation to the West Bank were \u201cunjustified and regrettable\u201d. And he added: \u201cThe British mandate ended exactly 77 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cExternal pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security against enemies who seek its destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lammy told MPs: \u201cYesterday, Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich even spoke of Israeli forces \u2018cleansing\u2019 Gaza, \u2018destroying what\u2019s left\u2019, of resident Palestinians \u2018being relocated to third countries\u2019. We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was being summoned to hear British demands that the latest assault on Gaza be halted.<\/p>\n
Lammy said Israel had suffered a \u201cheinous attack\u201d on 7 October 2023 and that the UK government backed Israel\u2019s right to defend itself.<\/p>\n
But the military escalation in Gaza was \u201cmorally unjustifiable, it\u2019s wholly disproportionate, it\u2019s utterly, utterly counterproductive \u2013 whatever Israeli ministers claim, this is not the way to bring the hostages safely home\u201d.<\/p>\n
Israel has held back aid saying it was being stolen by Hamas and insisted the renewed assault was necessary to wipe out the terrorists and release the remaining hostages.<\/p>\n
But Lammy said Israel would not secure the release of the hostages by creating a humanitarian catastrophe. He said: \u201cCivilians in Gaza facing starvation, homelessness, trauma, desperate for this war to end, now confront renewed bombardment, new displacement and new suffering. And the remaining hostages kept apart from their loved ones by Hamas for almost 600 days are now at heightened risk from the war around them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are going to take control of the strip and will allow just enough to prevent hunger. Fewer than 10 trucks entered Gaza yesterday. The UN and WHO have issued stark warnings of the threat of starvation hanging over the heads of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. This is abominable.\u201d<\/p>\n
He warned that the Israeli government was damaging the country\u2019s global reputation. \u201cThey are isolating Israel from its friends and partners around the world. Undermining the interests of the Israeli people. And damaging the image of the state of Israel in the eyes of the world. I find this deeply painful, as a lifelong friend of Israel and a believer in the values expressed in its declaration of independence.\u201d<\/p>\n
But many Labour backbenchers in the Commons found a gulf between Lammy\u2019s rhetoric and the government\u2019s actions limited to a symbolic suspending of talks on a free trade deal.<\/p>\n
Backbenchers including many Tories called for a tightening of controls of UK arms exports to Israel, recognition of the state of Palestine at a UN conference next month and a full ban on Israeli trade. Lammy said further concrete action would be considered but in conjunction with allies.<\/p>\n
He also imposed sanctions on a further three Israeli settlers and four entities on the West Bank, including veteran settler extremist Daniella Weiss, head of the Nachala movement, who featured in Louis Theroux\u2019s recent documentary, The Settlers. Other individuals targeted were Zohar Sabah, an Israeli who the US imposed sanctions on in November. It was from the Zohar Zabah farm, that settlers, some of them minors, set out to attack the principal of a Palestinian school in the grounds of the school.<\/p>\n
When contacted by phone, Weiss shrugged off the sanctions, which she attacked as \u201cchildish\u201d and claimed they would not affect her personally or the broader settler movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband ordered tickets already for an around the world tour, without including Britain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not mature, it is not serious. If it were a child doing it I could say that the child doesn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cBritain knows, the (British) government knows, that we were attacked, and if it were up to the Israeli government we wouldn\u2019t have started any war.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as we were attacked and as there are intentions to continue attacks, so we fight. And we will have the upper hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Lammy again held back from imposing sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers, the finance minister, Smotrich, and the interior minister, Itamar Ben<\/em>–Gvir<\/em>, although he said some of their language would be kept under review.<\/p>\n Smotrich said this week: \u201cJust as we levelled Rafah, we will level all of Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n Lammy pointed out there was a UN plan ready to deliver aid at scale with over 9,000 trucks at the border. He called on Netanyahu to immediately end the blockade and allow aid in.<\/p>\n Sanctions were also imposed on Libi Construction and Infrastructure Ltd, Harel Libi and Coco\u2019s Farm Outpost, and Neria\u2019s Farm Outpost, including \u201cpersons residing in the outpost, for involvement in human rights abuses.\u201d Earlier Keir Starmer said Britain \u201ccannot allow the people of Gaza to starve\u201d and that levels of suffering there were \u201cutterly intolerable\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe recent announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is totally and utterly inadequate,\u201d he told MPs.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we must coordinate our response, because this war has gone on for far too long. We cannot allow the people of Gaza to starve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n