In his first trip to Israel as UK foreign secretary, David Lammy called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, according to the British Foreign Office. He also called for the release of all hostages in Gaza and for a hostage release.
“The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable,” said Lammy in a statement. “This war must end now, with an immediate ceasefire, complied with by both sides. The fighting has got to stop, the hostages still cruelly detained by Hamas terrorists need to be released immediately, and aid must be allowed in to reach the people of Gaza without restrictions.”
The Foreign Office said the ceasefire that Lammy pushed for “includes the release of all hostages.”
A British official told The Times of Israel that Lammy intended to recommend a full ceasefire that would be conditioned on the release of all hostages.
In his meetings with both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Lammy highlighted “his commitment to recognizing a Palestinian state as an undeniable right of the Palestinian people, and as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.”
The Foreign Office said Lammy “will also call out settlements in the West Bank as illegal and harmful to a two-state solution on a visit to a Palestinian community.”
He also planned to announce that London would provide another £5.5 million (some NIS 25 million) this year to the British medical aid charity UK-Med to fund its Gaza operations.
Lammy’s schedule for his visit also includes meetings with President Isaac Herzog on Monday and families of hostages currently being held in Gaza who have ties to the UK.
Both Lammy’s Labour Party and the previous Conservative government initially avoided calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the war, using phrases like “humanitarian pause” instead. But the language has gotten stronger, as UK 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 by 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’s shadowy military commander in a massive strike Saturday, in the crowded southern Gaza Strip that Hamas claimed killed at least 90 people, including children.
Top Hamas officials said on Sunday that the negotiations for a possible ceasefire and hostage 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’s top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered in southern Israel and 251 were taken hostage, triggering the Israel-Hamas war.
It is believed that 116 hostages remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 42 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.