Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, raised the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday to allow more channels for humanitarian relief to enter Gaza.
Mr. Cameron made the case during a private meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem. In a statement Thursday morning, he said he had told Mr. Netanyahu that more crossings into Gaza needed to be opened to allow more trucks to enter.
“The scale of suffering in Gaza is unimaginable,” Mr. Cameron said. “We need an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out, followed by a sustainable cease-fire, without a return to hostilities.”
After the meeting in Jerusalem, Mr. Cameron traveled to the West Bank to meet the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. On Thursday he was in Qatar, where he spoke with the prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and said the two countries were jointly sending tents to Gaza to shelter displaced people.
The mounting civilian death toll in Gaza has become an acute source of concern in London. But Mr. Cameron’s pleas to the Israelis, like those of President Biden and his aides, have not borne much fruit, and on Wednesday, he found a defiant Israeli leader, who along with much of the country was mourning the deaths of 24 Israel Defense Force soldiers in the Gazan city of Khan Younis.
“We will continue to fight determinedly to vanquish the brutal enemy we face,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech on Wednesday marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Israeli Knesset. “We will continue to safeguard our national revival.”
Mr. Cameron and Mr. Netanyahu have a history of diplomatic relations going back more than a decade. When Mr. Cameron was prime minister, the Israeli leader referred to him as a “true friend of Israel,” though the two diverged in the past over Gaza and Israel’s settlement policy.