No war is more just than Gaza campaign, Herzog tells UK foreign secretary
David Lammy calls for full ceasefire and release of hostages, but avoids demanding the defeat of Hamas in his first trip abroad as top diplomat
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Hosting British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Jerusalem on Monday, President Isaac Herzog insisted that Israel was fighting a “just” war that could have a stabilizing effect on the world.
There is “no more just war than the one Israel is fighting now,” Herzog told Lammy, in Israel on his first trip abroad as the UK’s top diplomat. He added that the country is fighting not only against Hamas, but also again Iran, “an empire of evil that wants to undermine the stability of the world and is rushing to the bomb [and] undermining international trade.”
“We are a nation seeking peace, and I believe that we must find peace with our neighbors,” Herzog said, according to his office.
Israel has been at war against Hamas in Gaza since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists broke through the border and killed some 1,200 people while taking 251 hostages.
The president told Lammy that Israel is “working tirelessly” to bring the hostages home.
“I sincerely hope that there will be a hostage deal soon. It is a very important step,” said Herzog, “also on the merits and to get us out of the conflict.”
Senior Israeli officials were slated to be in Doha to speak with mediators about restarting indirect talks with Hamas. It remains unclear whether Saturday’s IDF strike on Hamas military leader Muhammad Deif would put those plans on hold.
Lammy, wearing the yellow ribbon that has become a symbol of the movement to bring the hostages home, said that he hopes that “we see a hostage deal emerge in the coming days, and I am using all diplomatic efforts — indeed, last week with the G7 nations, and particularly with Secretary of State Blinken — pressing for that hostage deal.”
Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies met in Rome last week.
Lammy also expressed his hope that a ceasefire deal finalized soon would end the suffering and the “intolerable loss of life” in Gaza.
He did not call for the toppling of Hamas as part of such a ceasefire, something he also avoided mentioning in his statements ahead of the trip as well.
After their meeting, the two men spoke with the family of Tamir Adar from Kibbutz Nir Oz, whose body is being held by Hamas after its terrorists murdered him on October 7.
First Lady Michal Herzog also raised the issue of Hamas sexual violence with Lammy, according to the Israeli readout.
Later Monday, Foreign Minister Israel Katz stressed to Lammy in a meeting that a hostage release deal will only be possible if Israel continues to exert military pressure on Hamas, and cautioned that if the international community were to try to rein in Israel’s war efforts, it would signal to the terror group that there is no need to negotiate.
Katz also urged Lammy to continue to promote Britain’s recent challenge to the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over Israel. He emphasized that Israel is a democratic country with an independent legal system, and called the ICC chief prosecutor’s request to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “scandalous.”
The UK, then governed by the Conservative Party, requested to submit an amicus brief challenging the court’s authority over Israelis on June 10. Lammy’s Labour Party, which came into power following the July 4 elections, opposed the case at the time.
In the weeks since, the United States has lobbied the new government not to drop the challenge, an American intelligence source told Middle East Eye.
Prior to their meeting, Katz showed his British counterpart around an exhibition displaying the clothing of 25 Hamas-abducted hostages. The installation, “Dress for Freedom,” includes garments from Nadav Popplewell, a British citizen killed in Hamas captivity whose body is being held by the terror group.
Ahead of his visit, Lammy called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, to include the release of all hostages in Gaza.
“The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable,” said Lammy in a statement on Sunday. “This war must end now, with an immediate ceasefire, complied with by both sides. The fighting has got to stop, the hostages still cruelly detained by Hamas terrorists need to be released immediately, and aid must be allowed in to reach the people of Gaza without restrictions.”
The British Foreign Office statement said the ceasefire that Lammy is pushing for “includes the release of all hostages.”
A British official told The Times of Israel that Lammy intended to recommend a full ceasefire that would be conditioned on the release of all hostages.
Lammy met with both Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday.
Ahead of the meetings, the Foreign Office said Lammy would highlight “his commitment to recognizing a Palestinian state as an undeniable right of the Palestinian people, and as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.”
The Foreign Office said Lammy would also “call out settlements in the West Bank as illegal and harmful to a two-state solution on a visit to a Palestinian community.”
He also planned to announce that London would provide another £5.5 million (some NIS 25 million) this year to the British medical aid charity UK-Med to fund its Gaza operations.
Both Lammy’s Labour Party and the previous Conservative government initially avoided calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the war, using phrases like “humanitarian pause” instead. But stronger language is being used, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Netanyahu last week there was a “clear and urgent need for a ceasefire.”
Labour’s stance on the Gaza war cost it votes in this month’s UK election. Although the party won by a landslide, pro-Palestinian independents defeated Labour candidates in several seats with large Muslim populations.
It is believed that 116 hostages remain in Gaza — though the IDF has confirmed the deaths of 42 of them — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
