UK support to Israel ‘not unconditional,’ Cameron warns

London: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Sunday urged Israel to follow international humanitarian law in the wake of an Israeli attack on an aid convoy that left seven people dead.

Three U.K. citizens were among those killed in air strikes on a convoy of food aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) on Monday, an attack for which the Israeli military admitted culpability.

Israel has “a right to self-defense that we should support,” Cameron wrote in an opinion piece for the Sunday Times. But the U.K.’s support to Israel is “not unconditional,” he said.

“We expect such a proud and successful democracy to abide by international humanitarian law, even when challenged in this way,” Cameron said.

The article was published on the six-month anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by the Hamas militant group on Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory attacks have killed more than 33,000 people in the Gaza Strip, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.

The attacks on the aid convoy last Monday triggered a backlash from Israel’s close allies, including the U.S., with calls to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The enclave’s entire population of 2.3 million faces acute food insecurity, monitoring groups have warned.

In his op-ed, Cameron repeated a call for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “allow more aid into Gaza,” and he detailed plans to bring U.K. aid supplies into the Israeli port of Ashdod. He also supported a maritime humanitarian corridor from Cyprus to Gaza, which was inaugurated last month.

U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden also criticized the Netanyahu government, saying on Sky News Sunday that Israel has made “big mistakes” and that “we should hold them to account for that.”

The ministers’ remarks follow a week of heated debate in the U.K. on whether it should stop exporting arms to Israel.

The Israeli military on Sunday reduced its presence in the south of the Gaza Strip, withdrawing all ground troops except one brigade, according to a military spokespersonIt’s unclear what the development means for the Israeli plans for a ground operation in Rafah to defeat Hamas, a prospect about which the U.S. has shown concerns.