The UK has joined 24 other countries in condemning Israel for depriving Palestinians of “human dignity” as they issued a call for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.
David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, joined ministers from Australia, Canada and France in urging the Israeli government to lift restrictions on the flow of aid, arguing that the suffering of civilians had “reached new depths”.
They also described proposals from the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, to move 600,000 Palestinians to a so-called “humanitarian city” in Rafah, an area that has been heavily damaged by Israeli bombs, as “completely unacceptable”.
At the Commons liaison committee, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the situation in Gaza was “intolerable” as he repeated the UK’s commitment to recognising a Palestinian state “at a time most conducive to the prospects of peace” in the region.
On Monday, Israel launched substantial air raids and a ground operation in Gaza, targeting Deir al-Balah, the main hub for humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian territory, amid warnings of widening starvation.
The latest assault began a day after the highest death toll in 21 months inflicted by the Israeli military on desperate Palestinians seeking food aid, with at least 85 killed in what has become a grim and almost daily slaughter.
The UN food agency, the World Food Programme, said the majority of those killed on Sunday had gathered near the border fence with Israel in the hope of getting flour from a UN aid convoy when they were fired on by Israeli tanks and snipers.
Starmer said: “The situation on the ground in Gaza is intolerable on so many levels and we make that absolutely clear in all our exchanges with Israel and with other countries. Whether that’s the deaths of those that are queueing for aid, whether it’s the plans to force Palestinians to live in certain areas or be excluded from certain areas, they are all intolerable and absolutely wrong in principle.”
Starmer has come under pressure from MPs, including Emily Thornberry, who chairs the foreign affairs committee, to recognise a Palestinian state. Some western countries are due to do so this month.
In a statement on Monday, the foreign ministers called for Israel to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their work. After a two-month blockade on most aid entering Gaza that has pushed the territory’s 2.1 million residents to the verge of famine, the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has overseen a chaotic, and often deadly, operation.
“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the foreign ministers said. “The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. 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.”
They said it was “horrifying” that hundreds of Palestinians had been killed while seeking aid, and that the Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population was unacceptable. “We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose,” they said.
Speaking in the Commons, Lammy told MPs he “utterly condemned” the killing of civilians who were seeking to meet their basic needs. “The Israeli government must answer: what possible military justification can there be for strikes that have killed desperate, starving children?”
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He criticised Katz’s plan to move the entire population of Gaza to Rafah, saying it was a “cruel vision which must never come to pass” and would be a violation of international humanitarian law. He told MPs there should be a “viable pathway” to a Palestinian state that would have “no role” for Hamas, which he said would use it as a “launch pad” for terrorism.
On Monday afternoon, the Israeli foreign ministry rejected the joint statement, saying it was “disconnected from reality”.
“The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognise Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation,” the ministry said. “Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides. At these sensitive moments in the ongoing negotiations, it is better to avoid statements of this kind.”
The Labour MP Andy Slaughter asked Lammy how a ceasefire could be reached, given how swiftly Israel had dismissed the statement. In response, Lammy said the Israeli government “can see the strength of feeling in the house”.
“That ignoring of the international community is tarnishing greatly the reputation of Israel. We continue, of course, to look at what further we may need to do.”