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The UK has frozen negotiations for a new trade deal with Israel over its renewed offensive in Gaza, as an Israeli opposition leader warned that the country risked becoming a “pariah state” over its military campaign.
British foreign minister David Lammy said the move was a response to the “abominable” situation in Gaza, accusing Israel’s far-right government of “planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip in the south, and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need”.
The UK’s decision came amid intensifying international condemnation of Israel’s offensive, with French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot saying France would support a review of the EU’s association agreement with Israel in response to its actions in Gaza.
Yair Golan, leader of Israel’s Democrats party, told Israeli public radio on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was “endangering” the country’s existence with its conduct in the war against Hamas, which has provoked concerns even within US President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country,” Golan said.
“A sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations.”
Golan’s remarks drew a furious response from Netanyahu, who accused the former general of “wild incitement” and “echoing the most despicable antisemitic blood libels against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel”.
Israel has hugely ratcheted up its offensive in Gaza in recent days, expanding its ground operations in the enclave and carrying out air strikes that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.
Until Monday, it had also not allowed any food, aid, medicines or fuel to enter Gaza for more than two months, which a UN panel last week said had left nearly half a million Palestinians facing starvation. Tom Fletcher, a senior UN official, this month warned of a looming “genocide” in Gaza.
Israel rejected the accusation and has insisted that its restrictions on aid entering Gaza were designed to prevent it being diverted to Hamas.
But its approach — including a new plan to allow a little-known foundation to deliver aid to Palestinians at a handful of distribution points expected to be concentrated in southern Gaza — has drawn increasing international criticism, including from some of its staunchest allies.
Netanyahu conceded on Monday that the decision to allow minimal amounts of aid into Gaza was a response to pressure from Israel’s “friends” across the world and in the US Congress, who had warned the Israeli prime minister that “‘we will not accept pictures of mass starvation’”.
The UK, France and Canada also said they would take “concrete actions” against Israel if it did not stop the offensive and lift restrictions on aid entering Gaza.
The international criticism intensified on Tuesday with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer demanding Israel “massively scale up” aid to Gaza.
“Innocent children being bombed again is utterly intolerable,” Starmer told the UK parliament. “The recent announcement that Israel will allow a ‘basic’ quantity of food into Gaza — a basic quantity — is totally and utterly inadequate.”
Lammy also lambasted Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s ultranationalist finance minister, who said on Monday that Israel was “cleansing” Gaza and “destroying everything that’s left” of the enclave.
“We must call this what it is: it is extremist, it is dangerous, it is repellent, it is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” Lammy said, adding that the behaviour of the Israeli government was “an affront to the values of the British people”.
There was further criticism from Qatar and France, with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani saying that Israel’s blockade on Gaza “shouldn’t be acceptable to the international community”. Barrot, the French foreign minister, said Paris was “determined” to recognise a Palestinian state, without setting a concrete timeframe for such a step.
Meanwhile, Fletcher warned that 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of dying in the next 48 hours if aid did not reach them.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 53,000 people, according to Palestinian officials. During Hamas’s October 7 attack, militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took 250 hostage.
There is also mounting international alarm about the situation in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has ratcheted up its military operations and settler violence against Palestinians has surged.
On Tuesday, the UK imposed sanctions on three Israeli settlers, two illegal settler outposts and two organisations supporting violence against Palestinian communities in the territory.
Additional reporting by Chloe Cornish
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