SIR Keir Starmer will hold talks with Israel’s president today — after condemning its strike on Hamas officials in Qatar.
The PM will speak to Isaac Herzog about the “intolerable situation in Gaza” and the actions his country must take to end the “horrific suffering”.
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Israel’s head of state, largely a figurehead, says he is visiting the UK this week to “show solidarity with the Jewish community, which is under severe attack and facing a wave of anti-Semitism”.
But sixty MPs and peers among the ranks of Labour, the Greens, and the SNP, have called for Downing Street to block his entry to the UK.
Ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now forming his own party, declared Mr Herzog should be “in the Hague” rather than on a flight to London.
And Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the president must answer allegations Israel is guilty of “war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide”.
Downing Street last night stopped short of repeating Mr Streeting’s calls, but a spokesman underlined Sir Keir’s “revulsion” at the suffering in the Gaza Strip.
It came after the PM condemned Israel’s killings of Hamas negotiators in Doha yesterday, saying they “violate Qatar’s sovereignty and risk further escalation in the region”.
Starmer has previously been accused of rewarding Hamas after vowing to recognise a Palestinian state earlier in the year.
The Prime Minister said the UK would act by September unless Israel agreed to end the “appalling” crisis in Gaza.
He issued the blunt ultimatum to Benjamin Netanyahu after an emergency Cabinet meeting and under mounting pressure from Labour ministers and MPs.
But Donald Trump and political rivals slap down the move – warning it risks rewarding Hamas for its terror attacks.
The US President claimed the PM did not even raise the controversial move when they met in July.
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