ARTICLE AD BOX
Keir Starmer is on the verge of sanctioning senior members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the crisis in Gaza amid calls from MPs for tougher action against Israel.
The sanctions are being considered as alarm grows over the fate of thousands of Palestinians as the Israeli Defence Force steps up military operations and supplies continue to struggle to get through.
Top of the list are understood to be Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, as well as others.
It comes a day after Britain issued fresh sanctions against Israel and suspended trade talks over its “morally unjustifiable” escalation of violence in Gaza, with foreign secretary David Lammy blasting Netanyahu’s actions as “wholly disproportionate”.
As the United Nations warned about the potential for “genocide”, Sir Keir has been told that his government needs to take much stronger action against the Israeli government swiftly if he wants to avoid a catastrophe in Gaza.
The UN also warned on Wednesday morning that aid is still not getting through to Gaza.
With urgency growing over the plight of 14,000 babies in Gaza who could just have hours to live, Labour backbenchers were joined by Tory, Green, Lib Dem and SNP MPs in demanding much harsher measures against Netanyahu’s government.
A chorus of voices in the Commons urged Mr Lammy to suspend all arms sales to Israel and to impose sanctions on ministers in Netanyahu’s government, demanding the “concrete action” promised by Sir Keir in a communique with French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian PM Mark Carney.
In angry exchanges across the House, MPs questioned what would be needed for the Labour government to acknowledge that Israel had crossed a red line for tough sanctions to be imposed.
Speaking to The Independent on Wednesday, senior Labour backbencher Clive Lewis confirmed he believes the government “needs to take an urgent look at this and look at suspending arms sales in particular.”
Labour MP Melanie Ward, a parliamentary private secretary, asked Mr Lammy: “What is the red line? Gaza is out of time.”
Labour MP Azfal Khan said: “Concrete steps are overdue. When will you impose a full arms embargo on Israel and also recognise Palestine?”
Former Tory minister Kit Malthouse said: “Maybe we need to beg for the lives of those Palestinian children before they will trigger this action – whatever it might be.”
In his statement, Mr Lammy confirmed that the government was considering imposing sanctions on ministers, adding: “We keep these issues under review.”
However, in a sign of further action, the foreign secretary condemned the “monstrous” calls from Israeli cabinet ministers for Gaza to be cleansed. He named Smotrich and Ben-Gvir who he branded “extremists.”
The UK Labour government’s actions have been welcomed by opposition figures in Israel who believe Netanyahu has gone too far.
Ex-Israeli leader Ehud Olmert said: “Carry on the political condemnation as much as you can and as powerful as you can.”
But the Israeli government hit back on Tuesday evening suggesting that the UK still believes it is a colonial power.
Israel’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said Britain was harming its own economy and had an “anti-Israel obsession”.
English (US) ·