Britain working for humanitarian pause in Gaza, says foreign secretary

Britain is trying to arrange a temporary cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip so that more humanitarian aid can be delivered to the besieged Palestinians, its foreign secretary said on Monday.

Aid supplies to Gaza have been choked since Israel began bombarding the densely populated Palestinian enclave in response to a deadly attack by Hamas on 7 October. The attack, said the resistance movement, was carried out as a reaction to violence by Israeli settlers backed by the army in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said that humanitarian aid was trickling into Gaza but the volume needed to be increased significantly. “We’re working extensively with the Egyptians, with the Israelis, and others to try and have a humanitarian pause, a temporary pause so that we can get that humanitarian aid to the people who need it,” Cleverly told Reuters at the British Ambassador’s residence in Abu Dhabi. However, he stopped short of calling for a full ceasefire in the Israeli war.

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Israel has so far rejected international calls, including by the UN, for a humanitarian pause to its bombardment of Gaza that has displaced one million Palestinians and killed more than 8,000 men, women and children. More than half of those killed were women and children.

Cleverly is due to meet with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan later on Monday. Critics point out that the refusal of officials such as Cleverly and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to criticise the far-right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has given the apartheid state the green light to conduct a genocidal campaign against the people of occupied Palestine.

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