\n<\/p>\n
The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the Israeli president, Isaac <\/strong>Herzog, had a \u201ctough\u201d set of exchanges over humanitarian aid in Gaza at a Downing Street meeting, amid street protests demanding Herzog\u2019s arrest as a war criminal.<\/p>\n Herzog, speaking to the Chatham House thinktank immediately after the meeting, said he had offered the British government a fact-finding mission to look at the levels of aid entering Gaza. He denied there was any famine and blamed the high civilian death toll on Hamas placing missiles in living rooms.<\/p>\n He offered no apology for the attack on Hamas\u2019s leadership in Doha on Tuesday, accusing Qatar of being allies of Hamas rather than mediators.<\/p>\n Downing Street said Starmer \u201ccondemned Israel\u2019s action in Doha yesterday as completely unacceptable. He said the strikes were a flagrant violation of a key partner\u2019s sovereignty and do nothing to secure the peace we all desperately want to see\u201d.<\/p>\n Turning to Gaza, he reiterated his huge concern and implored Israel to change course. They must stop the human-made famine from worsening further by letting aid in and halting their offensive operations.\u201d<\/p>\n No 10 defended the decision for Starmer and the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, to meet Herzog, and said one goal was to persuade him that Israel needed to do more to evacuate injured children and potential students from Gaza to the UK.<\/p>\n <\/span>Protesters gathered outside Chatham House during Isaac Herzog\u2019s visit.<\/span> Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n In the Commons, the meeting was widely condemned by Labour MPs angry the government is not taking a tougher line with Israel, which some described as a \u201crogue state\u201d.<\/p>\n Herzog\u2019s trip has been billed as a private visit to support the Jewish community in the UK.<\/p>\n He said of his encounter with Starmer: \u201cIt was a meeting between allies, but it was a tough meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThings were said that were tough and strong, and clearly we can argue, because when allies meet they can argue. We are both democracies, we both understand the threat from the jihadists.\u201d<\/p>\n Herzog condemned the British intention to recognise a Palestinian state, saying: \u201cWe believe that a unilateral resolution regarding a Palestinian state will be adverse and negatively affect any future process, because it will be dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cIt won\u2019t help one Palestinian, one hostage, and can be adversely interpreted by Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said he rejected \u201cout of hand\u201d comments by Wes Streeting that Israel has to answer allegations of war crimes and genocide.<\/p>\n \u201cEven a recent UK report said that Israel is not carrying out, God forbid, any genocide, and we reject it out of hand,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to blame Israel without understanding the facts or without seeing it for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Herzog did admit that the food distribution system set up by the Israeli government and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had not worked, adding Israel was in the middle of a major overhaul of food distribution.<\/p>\n He also denied it was an Israeli plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza, urging Europeans not to take remarks made by cabinet members Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as if they were Israeli policy.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael is a democracy with as far-reaching free speech as imaginable, but that does not reflect in any way the Israeli policy,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is absolutely not the Israeli position or intention. Israel has made it clear it does not want to expel anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Herzog tried to downplay plans to annex most of the West Bank, saying they were not going to be implemented tomorrow.<\/p>\n Rejecting a two-state solution, he said both sides were too traumatised to consider such a step, and accused Hamas of trying to drive the region and the world crazy.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Several hundred protesters gathered in the rain outside Chatham House\u200b, banging pots and pans as the Israeli president\u2019s convoy arrived\u200b. The crowd \u200bchant\u200bed \u201clock him up\u201d\u200b throughout Herzog\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n Rachel, a 20-year-old law student who held a \u201cHerzog to the Hague\u201d sign, called for \u200bhis arrest and said it was \u201cdisgusting\u201d that he had been granted a meeting with Starmer.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever\u200b, it\u2019s not surprising. We know that this government, time and time again, has accepted and welcomed war criminals,\u201d she said\u200b.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government knows that so much of the British public do not stand for this. We do not stand for the actions of Herzog and they knew they had to do this in secret, because we would have been there to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacqueline Namon, who travelled from Reading to London for the protest, said she felt the government had rolled out the red carpet for Herzog.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever I\u2019m doing during the day, I\u2019m thinking about Gaza. It\u2019s just in my head the whole time. It\u2019s stressful but I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s just getting worse and worse. I can\u2019t understand how the powers that be are behaving the way they are behaving.\u201d<\/p>\n In an earlier briefing to the media, Herzog insisted that the Qatar strike was designed to bring about an end to the war. \u201cWe targeted those who refused to accept the deal \u2013 primarily Khalil al-Hayya, who was the head of Hamas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe kept on being the objector. He refused adamantly to get to a deal. He kept on saying \u2018no\u2019, or \u2018yes, but\u2019 \u2013 and the \u2018but\u2019 was impossible to overcome.<\/p>\n \u201cHis conditions could never be met. He was one of the instigators and perpetrators of 7 October, and I guess the Americans can confirm it.\u201d<\/p>\n Al-Hayya was initially reported to have been killed in the strike, but Israeli officials have since suggested that this may not be the case. However, his son, Humam, and Jihad Labad, the director of his office, have been confirmed as being among the six people killed.<\/p>\n In a statement released after the meeting, No 10 said: \u201cThe leaders agreed that the hostages who were cruelly ripped by Hamas from their families nearly two years ago must be released.<\/p>\n \u201cThe prime minister also shared his condolences for the horrifying terror attack in Jerusalem on Monday, making clear that the UK stands against the abhorrent terrorism Israel has endured since 7 October.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, had a \u201ctough\u201d set of exchanges over humanitarian aid in Gaza at a Downing Street meeting, amid street protests demanding Herzog\u2019s arrest as a war criminal. Herzog, speaking to the Chatham House thinktank immediately after the meeting, said he had offered the British<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2313,1346,582,1059,1347,2545],"class_list":{"0":"post-20458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-israeli","9":"tag-keir","10":"tag-meeting","11":"tag-president","12":"tag-starmer","13":"tag-tough"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}