Keir Starmer slams Hamas violence in Labour conference speech

Keir Starmer brands Hamas ‘terrorists’ who murdered ‘men, women and children in cold blood’ and says Israel has a right to protect itself amid Labour conference row over hard Left’s support for Palestinians

• He used keynote speech to hammer home the party’s support for Israel 
• Applause as he said that Israel had a right to defend itself and tore into Hamas 

Sir Keir Starmer today lashed out at Hamas ‘terrorists’ who murdered men, women and children ‘in cold blood’ as he tacitly slapped down pro-Palestinian hard Left Labour members.

The party leader used his keynote conference speech in Liverpool to hammer home the party’s support for Israel after the anti-Semitism crisis of the Jeremy Corbyn era.

To applause he said that Israel had a right to defend itself and tore into Hamas, saying its bloody campaign that has left hundreds dead ‘does nothing for Palestine’.

It came after leftwing Labour MPs shared a platform with the Palestinian ambassador in the aftermath of Hamas‘s bloody assault on Israel, and refused to blame the terrorist group directly for the killing, raping and kidnapping of civilians.

John McDonnell and Bell Ribeiro-Addy attended an event in Liverpool alongside Husam Zomlot at which they criticised the behaviour of the Netanyahu regime and its predecessors towards the Palestinians.

The backbench allies of the former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who are both former shadow ministers, were among the speakers at the event organised by the Labour and Palestine pressure group and the Unite union. 

There have also been hard Left protests outside the secure conference zone, with Labour refusing to let them take place inside as the party seeks to restore its relationship with British Jews. 

The party leader used his keynote conference speech in Liverpool to hammer home the party’s support for Israel after the anti-Semitism crisis of the Jeremy Corbyn era.

John McDonnell and Bell Ribeiro-Addy attended an event in Liverpool alongside Husam Zomlot at which they criticised the behaviour of the Netanyahu regime and its predecessors towards the Palestinians. 

He and the hard left backbench allies of the former party leader Jeremy Corbyn were among the speakers at the event organised by the Labour and Palestine pressure group and the Unite union.

Sir Keir told the audience he was ‘shocked and appalled by events in Israel’.

He added: ‘I utterly condemn the senseless murder of men, women and children – including British citizens – in cold blood by the terrorists of Hamas.

‘This party believes in the two state solution. A Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel.

‘But this action by Hamas does nothing for Palestinians, and Israel must always have the right to defend her people.

‘And conference, these events, the war in Ukraine, they show precisely the test of our era. The world is becoming a more volatile place.’

Hours earlier, at a second event today, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mr McDonnell said he was concerned at the ‘potential loss of life’ despite hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians already having died. 

He urged people to ‘mobilise’ to press for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel as he warned of an ‘annihilation of civilians’ in Gaza.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign deputy director Ryvka Barnard accused the Government of being ‘actively complicit in these crimes in the collective punishment of the Palestinian people’ as she hit out at the Israeli ‘apartheid’.

She said ‘there can be no excuse or justification’ for the killing of civilians, but added: ‘Despite what British political leaders and the press may be presenting the events of the past few days, as absolutely shocking as they have been, they should come as no surprise to any of us.

‘For decades, Palestinians have endured brutal colonial violence and control, mass expulsion, military occupation and apartheid.’

And last night, Ms Ribeiro-Addy, the Streatham MP, condemned the violence and the loss of life on both sides, before calling for peace talks, saying: ‘I have seen it said that this weekend’s events have interrupted or damaged peace talks. That is fiction, There are no real peace talks and there have not been for years.’ 

In addition, Labour MPs including a shadow minister have poised with the PSC, which has blamed Israel for the violence wrought upon it. 

Shadow business minister Afzal Khan apologised last night after visiting the Labour conference stand of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which issued a statement in the aftermath of the slaughter of civilians and hostage-taking suggesting it was the consequence of Israeli violence.

He is the latest Labour politician to pose with the group and its banner accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’ , with backbencher Apsana Begum avoiding censure for doing the same thing on Saturday.

This morning Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told Sky News: ‘I’ve met with him, I speak with him. Maintaining diplomatic relations is important.

‘But I have said that Palestinian voices, particularly those in leadership positions, should criticise the appalling behaviour, the atrocious actions, that have been perpetrated by Hamas.

‘These indiscriminate killings, these murders, these kidnaps, these terrorist actions, should be condemned by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, because otherwise there will be this perception that all Palestinians support Hamas, and they don’t.’

Mr Zumlot told the event he ‘regretted’ the Hamas violence that has left hundreds dead. He also revealed  six members of his family had been killed that day by an Israeli bombardment as he accused the nation of a ‘war crime’ by cutting water an electricity from Gaza. 

He told told a Labour and Palestine event on the fringes of the party conference: ”What Israel is doing now is revenge. Sheer vengeance. Those are civilians, families. It’s not gonna resolve anything. Cutting water and electricity from two million people is a collective punishment. It’s a war crime. It’s not gonna lead anywhere.’

This morning Pat McFadden became the latest Labour frontbencher to criticise Hamas, as the leadership seeks to put clear water between the mainstream of the party and hard Left elements.

There have been visible and voluble pro-Palestinian protests outside the conference venue in Liverpool but none inside the secure zone.

This morning Mr Cleverly told Sky News: ‘These indiscriminate killings, these murders, these kidnaps, these terrorist actions, should be condemned by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, because otherwise there will be this perception that all Palestinians support Hamas, and they don’t.’

Mr McFadden, Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator, declined to tell people not to protest in support of the Palestinian people, but made clear his party stands with Israel’s right to retrieve those taken hostage by Hamas.

He told Times Radio: ‘I’m not going to police protest. What I’m going to make clear is the Labour Party stands with Israel, stands with its right to defend itself. Stands with its right to get its own people back who have been taken hostage. And its right to use force to do so.’

Mr McFadden said the consequences of Hamas’s actions will have been known to the militant group and ‘if they wanted to show more concern for Palestinian civilians right now what they would do is they would return every single hostage that was taken, and they would do it today’.

Last night shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves urged pro-Palestinian demonstrators who protested outside the event to stay at home, saying the party backed Israel’s fight against the ‘terrorist threat’ of Hamas.

Speaking to the News Agents podcast she said: ‘Israel was subjected to a terrorist attack on Saturday, people have been killed, hostages have been taken. And Israel has every right to defend itself, as does any sovereign country against terrorists.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared intentions to obliterate Hamas as he metes out revenge for the deadly surprise attacks by the Palestinian militant group this weekend that saw hundreds of Israelis killed.

Netanyahu, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and has served three separate terms, compared Hamas to the Islamic State group and said Israel planned to deploy ‘unprecedented force’ that would ‘reverberate for generations’.

‘We have only started striking Hamas,’ Netanyahu, 73, said in a nationally televised address late last night.

‘What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.

‘Hamas terrorists bound, burned and executed children. They are savages. Hamas is ISIS,’ Netanyahu concluded.

Thousands of Hamas targets have been wiped out in brutal aerial bombing campaigns, Israeli defence officials claimed, but harrowing clips circulating social media showed how the rockets and bombs also obliterated Palestinian residential blocks, killing hundreds of civilians.

Military spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters on Tuesday that the bodies of some 1,500 Hamas militants had been found around the Gaza border following strikes, adding that security forces had ‘more or less restored control over the border’ with Gaza.

Israel also ordered a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, cutting off electricity, fuel and food for the 2.3 million Palestinians who for the most part were already living in abject poverty.

The four-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighbourhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble.

In a response to the savage aerial bombardment of Gaza, Hamas warned late last night it would begin executing Israeli civilian captives.

‘Every targeting of our people without warning will be met with the execution of one of the civilian hostages,’ Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.

Hamas militants abducted up to 150 people, including women and children, from Israeli territory and dragged them back in Gaza amid their ruthless slaughter.

‘We have decided to put an end to this and as of now, we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one the hostages of civilians we are holding,’ Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, later added in a recording released to Al Jazeera.

On Tuesday morning, air raid sirens were blaring in cities across Israel, suggesting Hamas was launching another salvo of rockets.

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