Israeli President Isaac Herzog revealed that he had a heated discussion with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday at Downing Street. The \u201ctough\u201d meeting highlighted significant disagreements between the two leaders regarding recent actions and policies of their respective countries. Both sides engaged in frank talks to address their differences and explore potential areas of cooperation. The meeting comes a day after Israel expanded its attacks on Hamas by launching an airstrike aimed at killing the Islamist group\u2019s . Political leaders in Qatar, a British ally in the Middle East, which Starmer condemned. Israel has been angered by Britain\u2019s plans to join several other Western countries, including France and Canada. Recognising a Palestinian state later this month \u2013 unless Israel meets conditions including a ceasefire in Gaza. \u201cThings were said that were tough and strong, and clearly we can argue, because when allies meet, they can argue. We are both democracies,\u201d Herzog said at a later Chatham House event. He said Starmer\u2019s plan for Palestinian statehood and his views on humanitarian aid in Gaza had been the root of the disagreement. He added that he had invited the British government to undertake a fact-finding mission to Israel. Starmer\u2019s office said the British leader implored Herzog to change course over Gaza. Expressing deep concern about the humanitarian crisis and urging Israel to allow in aid and halt offensive operations. He reaffirmed that the UK and Israel were longstanding allies and said he remains committed to working towards an enduring peace for both Israelis and Palestinians. Earlier, the two men briefly shook hands without smiling on the steps of Downing Street before they entered the building. Starmer also raised with Herzog the Israeli airstrike on Qatar, condemning the incident as \u201ccompletely unacceptable.\u201d \u201cHe 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 a Downing Street spokesperson said. The Gaza war has strained Israel\u2019s relations with Britain and other European countries. Britain has blocked Israeli officials from attending its biggest defence trade show taking place this week. Starmer is under pressure from politicians in his own party to take a tougher approach to Israel. But he told parliament on Wednesday that diplomacy was needed to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and to get the Israeli hostages released by Hamas. Herzog\u2019s role as Israel\u2019s president is mainly ceremonial but he caused anger when he said all residents of Gaza were responsible for the Hamas-led attack on Israel after the October 7 attacks in 2023. Asked earlier on Wednesday why he was meeting Herzog, Starmer said: \u201cI will not give up on diplomacy, that is the politics of students.\u201d Wes Streeting, who is health minister in Starmer\u2019s government, said this week that Israel\u2019s handling of the war in Gaza was leading it to \u201cpariah status\u201d. Starmer also hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, where they agreed there would be \u201cabsolutely no role\u201d for Hamas in the future governance of a Palestinian state. Britain has promised to recognise a Palestinian state ahead of the U.N. General Assembly later this month unless Israel meets four conditions, including ending the war in Gaza and allowing more aid into the Palestinian enclave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israeli President Isaac Herzog revealed that he had a heated discussion with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday at Downing Street. The \u201ctough\u201d meeting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27369,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}