TEL AVIV: The new British foreign secretary called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, his second international trip since Labour’s resounding victory in elections earlier this month.
David Lammy said the ongoing war in Gaza is “intolerable” and stressed in meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leadership that Britain wants to assist with diplomatic efforts “securing a ceasefire deal and creating the space for a credible and irreversible pathway toward a two-state solution.”
Lammy met Sunday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He will meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday. During his visit, Lammy will also meet with families of hostages currently being held in Gaza who have ties to the UK He called for the release of all hostages and a dramatic increase in the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
Lammy demanded Israel halt settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, and said that the Palestinian Authority needs to be “reformed and empowered.”
Both Lammy’s Labour Party and the previous Conservative government initially avoided calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war, using phrases like “humanitarian pause.” But the language has got stronger. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Netanyahu last week there was a “clear and urgent need for a ceasefire.”
Labour’s stance on the Gaza war cost it votes in this month’s UK election. Although the party won in a landslide, pro-Palestinian independents defeated Labour candidates in several seats with large Muslim populations.
Lammy’s comments came the day after Israel said it had targeted Hamas’ shadowy military commander in a massive strike Saturday in the crowded southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 90 people, including children, according to local health officials.
Top Hamas officials said on Sunday that the negotiations for a possible ceasefire deal had not been halted because of the attack. Hamas also denied that Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, the target of the strike, was killed and said Israel’s “false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre.”
Deif and Hamas’ top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 250, triggering the Israel-Hamas war.
Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,400 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
UK Foreign Secretary visits Israel and West Bank and calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
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UK Foreign Secretary visits Israel and West Bank and calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
- Lammy met Sunday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
Palestinians attempt to use Gaza’s Rafah Border crossing amidst delays
- The Rafah Crossing opened to a few Palestinians in each direction last week, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening
CAIRO: Palestinians on both sides of the crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which opened last week for the first time since 2024, were making their way to the border on Sunday in hopes of crossing, one of the main requirements for the US-backed ceasefire. The opening comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, though the major subject of discussion will be Iran, his office said.
The Rafah Crossing opened to a few Palestinians in each direction last week, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening. Over the first four days of the crossing’s opening, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to United Nations data.
Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that they say is not available in the war-shattered territory. The few who have succeeded in crossing described delays and allegations of mistreatment by Israeli forces and other groups involved in the crossing, including and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab.
A group of Palestinian patients and wounded gathered Sunday morning in the courtyard of a Red Crescent hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, before making their way to the Rafah crossing with Egypt for treatment abroad, family members told The Associated Press.
Amjad Abu Jedian, who was injured in the war, was scheduled to leave Gaza for medical treatment on the first day of the crossing’s reopening, but only five patients were allowed to travel that day, his mother, Raja Abu Jedian, said. Abu Jedian was shot by an Israeli sniper while he was building traditional bathrooms in the central Bureij refugee camp in July 2024, she said.
On Saturday, his family received a call from the World Health Organization notifying them that he is included in the group that will travel on Sunday, she said.
“We want them to take care of the patients (during their evacuation),” she said. “We want the Israeli military not to burden them.”
The Israeli defense branch that oversees the operation of the crossing did not immediately confirm the opening.
A group of Palestinians also arrived Sunday morning at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing border to return to the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television reported.
Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first few days of the crossing’s operation described hours of delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.
The crossing was reopened on Feb. 2 as part of a fragile ceasefire deal that stopped the war between Israel and Hamas. Amid confusion around the reopening, the Rafah crossing was closed Friday and Saturday.
The Rafah crossing, an essential lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, was the only crossing not controlled by Israel prior to the war. Israel seized the Palestinian side of Rafah in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.
Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients — along with two companions for each — would be allowed to leave, but far fewer people than expected have crossed in both directions.
