UK’s Cameron urges Israel to take more ‘surgical’ approach to Hamas

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Tuesday urged Israel to take a “much more surgical, clinical and targeted approach” in dealing with Hamas.

After talks with his Italian counterpart in Rome, Cameron said Britain was asking Israel to “recognise that they have to minimise civilian casualties, they have to obey international humanitarian law at all times”.

He noted that, according to the Israelis, there had been fewer civilian casualties in the south of Gaza than in the north.

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“I would urge them still to go further,” the former premier told reporters.

“We want to see a much more surgical, clinical and targeted approach when it comes to dealing with Hamas.”

Cameron and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock wrote a joint article on Sunday calling for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza, and said that “too many civilians have been killed” in the conflict.

Asked what a sustainable ceasefire meant, he said Tuesday that stopping the fighting was “not sustainable if you stop permanently and Hamas are left in control of even one part of Gaza”.

He said a ceasefire and a two-state solution “cannot go together”.

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“You cannot expect the Israelis to have a two-state solution with Hamas in control of one part of what would be Palestine,” Cameron said.

“A sustainable solution means that Hamas are no longer a threat to Israel, they are not capable of doing what they did on October 7.”

Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, bursting through the militarised Gaza border fence, killing around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250, according to the latest Israeli figures.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says Israel’s withering military response has killed more than 19,667 people, mostly women and children, while devastating large swathes of the coastal territory.

In London, a cross-party committee of lawmakers pushed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on whether Israel’s response broke international law.

He replied: “Too many civilians are dying, of course too many civilians are dying. That is different from saying humanitarian law has been broken.”

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He defended Israel’s right to hit back at Hamas and said they should take “every precaution” to avoid harming civilians.

But he said doing so “will be very difficult if the precise organisation which has caused untold suffering for the Israeli people is hiding among civilians, knowingly doing so, knowingly putting them in harm’s way”.

© Agence France-Presse