LONDON: Britain’s leading Jewish body has demanded that Israel launch a surge of aid to Gaza.

In rare criticism of Israel’s government, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for a “rapid, uninhibited and sustained increase in aid through all available channels” for the Palestinian enclave.

It followed an emergency meeting held by the organization on Tuesday amid mounting anguish over the catastrophic situation in Gaza.

Phil Rosenberg, the board’s president, said: “The suffering we are witnessing in the Gaza Strip demands a response ... We need to see a rapid, uninhibited, and sustained increase in aid through all available channels, and we need to see all agencies cooperating in this endeavor.

“As we have been saying for months, food must not be used as a weapon of war, by any side in this conflict.”

A month ago, the organization took controversial disciplinary action against 36 of its elected officials who had signed an open letter criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza. Five of the 36 were suspended for two years.

The board’s statement represents a significant shift within the British Jewish body politic, and follows rising tensions within the community over the war in Gaza.

Dozens of deputies wrote to the board leadership before Tuesday’s emergency meeting demanding that the organization appeal to the Israeli government to “end this suffering.”

The letter added: “Nothing could be more damaging to the British Jewish community than staying silent in this moment.”

Marie van der Zyl, the former president of the board, wrote last week for Jewish News that “hunger and human suffering, on this scale, are incompatible with the core values of our faith.”

In a letter, a group of more than 400 influential rabbis from around the world, including many from the UK, also called on the Israeli government to end its “callous indifference to starvation.”

Jewish people worldwide “face a great moral crisis,” the letter warned. “We cannot condone the mass killings of civilians, including a great many women, children and elderly, or the use of starvation as a weapon of war.”