Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met with his British counterpart David Lammy on Sunday in Jerusalem. The two discussed Iran, Syria and Lebanon, as well as efforts to retrieve Israeli hostages from Gaza.
“Israel is interested in a hostage deal and is working to achieve it. We will soon know whether Hamas is interested,” Sa’ar’s told Lammy, according to a statement from his office.
Sa’ar also emphasized to Lammy the need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, according to the statement.
The meeting followed tensions in the bilateral relations between Israel and the U.K. government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labour Party.
In October, Lammy announced a third round of sanctions targeting Israeli organizations in Judea and Samaria, citing concerns over human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The sanctions, which included asset freezes, were for entities deemed guilty of “facilitating, inciting, promoting, or supporting activities that seriously violate Palestinian human rights,” Lammy said in October.
Sometime after Oct. 7, 2023, the United Kingdom imposed a partial suspension of arms sales to Israel that became known in early September. That decision drew sharp criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it “shameful” and asserted that it would not deter Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas.
There was a “clear risk” the arms “might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” Lammy said at the time.
In November, Lammy said Netanyahu would likely be arrested if he visited the United Kingdom because of the arrest warrants for alleged “war crimes” issued against him and former defense minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court.
Israel has denied the allegations and criticized the court for this move, as has the United States. The governments of several countries, including Poland and Hungary, that are parties to the Rome Statute have said they would ignore the arrest warrants.
During their meeting on Sunday Lammy invited Sa’ar to pay an official visit to the United Kingdom in the near future, according to Sa’ar’s office.
On Oct. 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists and Gaza civilians invaded Israel, murdering about 1,200 people and abducting 251. Israel launched an ongoing military campaign to dismantle Hamas in Gaza and retrieve its hostages.
On Saturday, Netanyahu sent his most senior negotiators—including Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Ronen Bar, Mossad Director David Barnea and Maj. Gen (res.) Nitzan Alon, the IDF’s point man for retrieving the hostages—to Doha, indicating that the discussions are approaching a critical point.
Among the hurdles that blocked previous rounds of talks were Hamas’s insistence on an IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a precondition to releasing the hostages and its demand for the release of terrorists in Israeli prisons that Israel is not prepared to set free.
President-elect Donald Trump has warned Hamas to release the hostages before he enters office on Jan. 20, promising that there will be “hell to pay” if this does not happen.
