Leader of the British Labour Party Keir Starmer stated that an extended truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza “must happen now.”
At a Scottish Labour Party convention in Glasgow on Sunday, the opposition leader made his remarks amid mounting pressure to support a “immediate ceasefire” in a conflict that has claimed the lives of almost 29,000 Palestinians.
On October 7, violence spearheaded by Hamas claimed the lives of 1,139 more Israelis.
In the past, Starmer has declined to support calls for an instant truce, stating that he preferred a “sustainable” resolution to the dispute.
There are now rifts inside the Labour Party on this subject; last year, over one-third of its lawmakers disobeyed Starmer in favor of demands for an instant cease-fire.
I recently returned from the Munich security conference, where the topic of the situation in Israel and Gaza kept coming up in every conversation I had, along with what concrete steps we could take to achieve the goals that we all share: the release of all hostages taken on October 7, an end to the killing of innocent Palestinians, and a significant expansion of humanitarian aid.
