Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Foreign Secretary David Cameronon held a private meeting in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The PMO did not divulge what was discussed during the meeting.
Ahead of Cameron’s trip, the Foreign Office in London said he would urge Netanyahu to “significantly increase the flow of life-saving aid” into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and “raise concerns over the high number of civilian causalities.”
“This week, I am in the Middle East … to help build a plan to move from that pause [in the war advocated by the U.K.] to a sustainable, permanent ceasefire without a return to hostilities,” Cameron said before taking off for Tel Aviv.
“Such a plan would require Hamas to agree to the release of all hostages, Hamas to no longer be in charge of Gaza launching rocket attacks at Israel, and an agreement in place for the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza, in order to provide governance and services and, increasingly, security,” he added.
Cameron also sat down with his Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz, on Wednesday before traveling to Ramallah in Samaria for meetings with P.A. officials, including Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
London’s top diplomat will continue to Qatar and Turkey later this week for further talks aimed at ending Israel’s war with Hamas.
Earlier this month, Cameron accused the Israel Defense Forces of possible breaches of international humanitarian law during its ongoing military operations against the terrorist group in Gaza.
Cameron claimed that some of what he had seen during the war was “deeply concerning.”
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned this week that any person or organization that “cannot unequivocally condemn the evil that Hamas did” on Oct. 7 has “no conscience, no morality, no decency and deserves no respect.
“I also reject any attempt to draw an equivalence between Israel’s actions and those of the terrorists who videotape their appalling crimes, who rape and murder with gratuitous zealotry,” Sunak told a Conservative Friends of Israel reception, Jewish News-U.K. reported.
“That is why this government has condemned the completely unjustified case that South Africa has brought to the International Court of Justice,” he said.
“It is sadly the case that when Israel responds to terrorism, to some people it automatically becomes the aggressor. Those people who rip down posters of hostages reveal themselves to have no humanity,” added the British premier.
