As thousands of Gaza babies face death by starvation, Israel must come to its senses

Foreign Secretary David Lammy describes Israel’s actions in Gaza, where food aid has been cut off for weeks with only a small amount recently allowed in, as ‘morally unjustifiable’ and ‘wholly disproportionate’

Yesterday Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, an Israeli political party formed by the merger of Labor and Meretz, warned his country was “on the path to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa once was, if it does not return to acting like a sane country... a sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby...”

Around the same time, Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the BBC that Israel must allow aid trucks containing baby food into Gaza because 14,000 babies “will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them... it’s chilling, it’s utterly chilling”.

The Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel was an atrocity in which innocent men, women and children were murdered without mercy. Israel had no choice but to attempt to militarily defeat these despicable terrorists, who boasted they would launch similar attacks.

Palestinians struggle to get food rations outside a distribution centre in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip (Picture: Bashar Taleb) | AFP via Getty Images

‘Morally unjustifiable’

However, Israel’s decision to cut off aid to the Gaza Strip in order to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages has created a devastating humanitarian crisis – and the cruel Hamas is unlikely to be swayed by the plight of their fellow Palestinians.

Aid cannot be used as a weapon of war and no one can argue that babies are anything other than innocent.

Given the situation, Foreign Secretary David Lammy was entirely right to describe Israel’s actions as “morally unjustifiable” and “wholly disproportionate”. “We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” he told MPs.

The UK Government has summoned Israel’s ambassador, suspended negotiations over a new free trade agreement with Israel, and is reviewing its cooperation with Netanyahu’s administration. To do anything less would be a scandal. The international community must urgently persuade Israel to change course.

However, we must also remember it is the Netanyahu government that is to blame, and there are many in Israel, like Yair Golan, a retired general, who are just as vehemently opposed to the horrors being perpetrated in their name as are all good people the world over.