Israel is involved in an “appalling and unacceptable” breach of international law, the United Kingdom’s left-wing government has alleged for the first time.
The eight-month-old left-wing British government has doubled down on its position of criticising Israel rather than supporting it as an ally, following earlier moves to back the International Criminal Court’s disputed bid to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to suspend weapons exports.
Speaking in the UK Parliament on Monday, the British Foreign Secretary — veteran left-wing campaigner David Lammy, now elevated to one of the highest political offices in the land — accused Israel of an “appalling and unacceptable” breach of international law.
Lammy also spoke in response to remarks by Labour lawmaker Rupa Huq, also from the left wing of the party, and who once mooted the UK could “apologise” for having created the state of Israel at all in 1948, although she later tried to walk those words back. In Parliament on Monday, Huq suggested that Israel’s actions had an extra dimension because they took place during Ramadan.
She said: “I welcome my right hon. Friend’s strong statement that blockading all aid into Gaza, including UK aid, is ‘appalling and unacceptable’. What discussions did he have with G7 colleagues about what can be done about this provocative action during Ramadan, and what consequences are there for what people are saying is a breach of international law?”.
As previously reported, President Trump has given Israel a free hand to respond to Hamas after they failed to engage with his proposal for an extension of the ceasefire that ended on March 1st. However, for the British government, these acts, including what Prime Minister Netanyahu said was a halting of the movement of goods into the Gaza Strip as hostilities resumed, are said to be unacceptable.
Responding to Huq, Lammy continued in Parliament: “[she] is right: this is a breach of international law. Israel, quite rightly, must defend its own security, but we find the lack of aid—and it has now been 15 days since aid got into Gaza—unacceptable, hugely alarming and very worrying.”
UK newspapers such as The Times note this is the first time the British government has outright accused Israel of breaking international law, as opposed to other recent comments that Netanyahu’s government merely risks breaking it.
As expressed by Lammy, the United Kingdom now walks a fine line on Israel, prefacing every statement on how London supports its right to exist while objecting to its efforts to protect its own people. Meanwhile, Hamas still holds Israeli and American hostages, some of whom are hoped to still be alive.
In recent memory, the British government was supportive of Israel after the October 7th 2023 attacks, but a General Election last year saw its centrist, nominally right-leaning Conservative government thrown out of power and a left-wing Labour administration put in its place. Previous positions, like opposing the bid by the International Criminal Court to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, were quickly reversed, and the UK even answered the call of hard-left pressure groups by suspending some weapons exports.
Netanyahu called the move a “shameful decision” at the time, and the British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis hit back, saying: “As Israel faces down the threat of Iran and its proxies, not just to its own people, but to all of us in the democratic west; this announcement feeds the falsehood that Israel is in breach of International Humanitarian Law, when in fact it is going to extraordinary lengths to uphold it… Sadly, this announcement will serve to encourage our shared enemies”.
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