Sunak calls for restraint in talks with Israeli counterpart Netanyahu
Rishi Sunak has told Benjamin Netanyahu it is “a moment for calm heads to prevail” in Israel’s response to Iran’s missile and drone attack.
The Prime Minister spoke to his counterpart yesterday afternoon after Israeli media had reported that Mr Net any ahuw as refusing to take calls from world leaders seeking to influence the response to Saturday night’s attack.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Mr Sunak “reiterated the UK’S steadfast support for Israel’s security and for wider regional stability”.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu thanked the UK for its rapid and robust support in the face of Iran’s reckless and dangerous attack on Saturday,” they added.
Mr Sunak also told the Israeli prime minister “he remained gravely concerned about the deepening humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.
“The UK wanted to see a massive step change in aid access to flood Gaza with vital supplies, including Israel opening up new aid routes as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson said.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, who is reportedly set to visit Israel soon, has urged Tel Aviv to be “smart as well as tough” by not escalating the conflict with Iran.
Mr Sunak has come under pressure from senior Tories and the Israeli government to ban iran’ s islamic revolutionary Guard Corps( IRGC) as a terrorist organisation in the wake of the attack.
But doing so could jeopardise the UK’S ability to engage with Tehran, a UK government minister suggested.
Senior Tories including former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and ex-home secretary Suella Braverman have urged the Prime Minister to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation.
But Home Office minister Laura Farris told LBC: “We’re not for a second defending the IRGC. We’re simply saying that maintaining that channel with Tehran is, at present, in our national interest.”
Meanwhile, Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has called for de-escalation following the thwarted Iranian attack to prevent a wider war, saying “tit-for-tat” retaliation would eventually lead to a “wider regional escalation”.