Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said he is appalled and sickened by the plight of civilians in Gaza, after the Israeli government rejected an international statement which warned suffering has “reached new depths”.
On Tuesday, Lammy told the BBC that Israel’s response was “hugely disappointing” and described the situation in Gaza as “grotesque”.
It comes after the UK and 27 other countries called for an immediate end to the war, and accused Israel of “drip feeding” aid to Gaza’s population.
The statement was released after dozens were killed while waiting to access supplies in recent days – but Israel described it as “disconnected from reality” and said it “sends the wrong message to Hamas”.
While there have been several previous international statements calling for an end to the war in Gaza, the criticism of Israel’s tactics in this most recent one was striking.
The statement read: “We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.”
On Monday, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said that more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for food over the weekend and that 19 others died as a result of malnutrition.
Lammy told BBC Breakfast: “When you see innocent children holding out their hand for food and you see them shot and killed… of course Britain must call it out.”
He continued: “These are not words that are normally used by a foreign secretary who is attempting to be diplomatic.”
Asked whether what he was describing constituted war crimes, Lammy said that was a determination for lawyers at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
He added: “To be honest, this has gone beyond lawyers, I want this war to end. The British people look at the horrors on their TV screens and they believe this war must and should come to an end.
“They are grossly offended by children suffering in the way that we are seeing.”
The government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel in 2024 covering equipment which could have an “offensive” use.
Pressed on whether ministers could further restrict arms sales, Lammy said he was satisfied he had already suspended the transfer of weapons that could be used in Gaza.
Lammy said the UK would “do more in the coming weeks” if there was no sign of “a change in behaviour from the Israeli government in how it is prosecuting this war”.
He said it would “not be appropriate” to detail what actions the UK government was considering and repeated his call for an “enduring ceasefire”.
“I regret that so far the international community has not been able to bring this war to an end,” he said, adding that the UK “cannot act unilaterally” to do so and had to “work in partnership with our allies”.
There have been near daily reports of Palestinians being killed while waiting for food since Israel partially eased an 11-week total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza in May and, along with the US, helped to establish a new aid system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to bypass the existing one overseen by the UN.
Israel has said the this system, which uses US private security contractors to hand out food parcels from sites inside Israeli military zones, prevents Hamas from stealing supplies.
But the UN and its partners have refused to co-operate with it, calling it unsafe and a violation of the humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence.
Israel launched a war in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 59,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced multiple times, and more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed. The healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed, and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.
