A Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal can only occur through military and diplomatic pressure, Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his British counterpart David Lammy, who made his first trip to the region this week, less than two weeks after a new Labour government swept into power in the United Kingdom.“Continued military pressure on Hamas, along with a clear message from the UK and the world that any ceasefire is conditional on the release of all hostages, are the only ways to bring them home,” Katz told him.Lammy, throughout his two-day trip, issued strong statements in support of linking a Gaza ceasefire with a deal for the return of the 120 remaining hostages in Gaza, who had been seized on October 7.He also met on Sunday night with family members of those held in Gaza.“The UK continues to push for the immediate release of all hostages,” Lammy said in a post on X regarding the meeting.
On Monday, in a meeting with President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem, he said he was “very conscious of the trauma of October 7th, and very conscious of the pain and anguish that many hostage families are experiencing and the nation is experiencing.”
How to reach a two-state solution
Central to a two-state resolution to the conflict, he said, is an “end to expanding illegal Israeli settlements and rising settler violence in the West Bank. Here, in what should be a crucial part of a Palestinian state, alongside Gaza and east Jerusalem, we need to see a reformed and empowered Palestinian Authority,” he said.“I am meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stress the United Kingdom’s ambition and commitment to play this full diplomatic role in securing a ceasefire deal and creating the space for a credible and irreversible pathway toward a two-state solution,” he said at the start of his two-day trip. He met, during the visit, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa.Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee Secretary-General Hussein Al-Sheikh, who met with Lammy, called on him to force Israel to stop its “aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.”More humanitarian assistance must be allowed into Gaza, he said in a post on X, adding that the Palestinian Authority must be returned to the Gaza Strip, he told Lammy.There also needs to be a “comprehensive political solution that ends the occupation in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy,” Sheikh said, as he stressed in particular the importance of British unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood.Over the last few months, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and Armenia have all taken that step.
The United Kingdom has supported Palestinian statehood but has not favored its immediate recognition.
Lammy stressed in his meeting with Palestinians that his party believes that unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood should take place at a critical point in a two-state peace process, rather than at its conclusion.