David Lammy said he will seek a “balanced position” on the Gaza conflict following the Labour Party’s election victory.
By JNS staff
Newly minted British Foreign Secretary David Lammy was set to arrive in Israel on Sunday for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials.
Lammy was appointed earlier this month after Labour won the general election.
He was expected to meet with his counterpart Israel Katz and President Isaac Herzog and visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Lammy was also set to travel to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas.
Last week, The Guardian reported that London’s new government would abandon the U.K.’s effort to challenge the International Criminal Court over attempts to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu.
The previous government, under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, joined Israel in fighting against ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan after he applied to have the court issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes, along with Hamas leaders.
Sunak’s administration had secretly filed a challenge on June 10, questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction over Israeli nationals in relation to alleged war crimes in Gaza. However, Labour officials, according to the Guardian report, have recently said that the party continues to believe the ICC, based in The Hague, does have jurisdiction over Gaza.
Lammy said last weekend that he will seek a “balanced position” on the Israel-Gaza conflict following the Labour Party’s landslide victory on July 4.
“We want to see those hostages out,” Lammy told Reuters. “But when we see the tremendous loss of life, 38,000 people—women and children—the fighting has to stop. The aid has got to get in,” he said.
The 38,000 figure has been thrown into doubt by recent reports, suggesting they are likely inflated by at least 10,000, and that the numbers for women and children are definitely fabricated. The figures are supplied by Hamas.
Lammy also called for an end to the fighting.
“I will use all diplomatic efforts to ensure that we get to that ceasefire,” he said. “We’ve been very clear that we want to see a ceasefire and we have been calling for that since the end of last year.”
Lammy didn’t specify whether he meant a temporary ceasefire or permanent cessation in hostilities.
In February, he said, “You can have a ceasefire that lasts for a few days. We want the ceasefire to last and to be permanent and to move towards the diplomatic solution. It will only be a political solution that brings an end to this.”
In November, with Israel reeling from the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist invasion, Lammy wrote a letter to then-Foreign Secretary James Cleverly calling on him to “condemn acts of violence and extremism by Israeli settlers.”
Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Netanyahu during a phone call last Sunday that his government remains committed to continuing London and Jerusalem’s “vital cooperation to deter malign threats,” Downing Street said.
The British leader reiterated his condolences for the “tragic loss of life” in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. He repeated the need to return the 120 hostages held by the terrorist group, implement a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and increase humanitarian aid.
Starmer also stressed to Netanyahu the need “to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution were in place, including ensuring the Palestinian Authority had the financial means to operate effectively.”