Keir Starmer paid tribute to the lives lost in Israel a year on from the October 7 massacre and he urged for peace ‘on this day of sorrow’ as the war in the Middle East continues
Keir Starmer has warned Britain must “never look the other way in the face of hate” as he paid tribute to the lives lost in Israel a year on from the October 7 massacre.
The Prime Minister said he “will not give up” until the hostages captured by Hamas are brought home as he remembered the “darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust”. As the war continues to tear through the Middle East Mr Starmer warned Britain “must also not look the other way as civilians bear the ongoing dire consequences” of the conflict.
The PM recalled the brutal attack on October 7, which saw “men, women, children and babies killed, mutilated, and tortured by the terrorists of Hamas”. “Agonising reports of rape, torture and brutality beyond comprehension which continued to emerge days and weeks later,” he said.
Mr Starmer acknowledged the loss of lives and suffering in the region since the attack and reiterated his calls for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. He continued: “We will not falter in our pursuit of peace and on this day of pain and sorrow, we honour those we lost, and continue in our determination to return those still held hostage, help those who are suffering, and secure a better future for the Middle East.”
The PM has also condemned a rise in “vile hatred” against Jews and Muslims in Britain as he warned the war in the Middle East has lit “touchpapers in our own communities here at home”. He said any attack on a minority “is an attack on our proud values of tolerance and respect”, writing in the Sunday Times: “We will not stand for it.”
It comes as a leading religious figure warns relations between Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK are “fragile and fractured” a year on from Hamas’s attack on Israel and the assault on Gaza began. Imam Qari Asim warned of an “apocalypse” in the Middle East as he expressed “the pain, trauma and heartbreak that British Muslims feel when they hear on their screens the cries of young children”.
Meanwhile rabbi Jonathan Romain has detailed how British Jews “felt suddenly less secure being Jewish in Britain” in the aftermath of the October 7 attack on Israel last year. Many have been left “shocked” by the speed at which anti-Israel feeling “quickly morphed into anti-Jewish feeling”, he warns.
The Government is also facing calls to launch a programme similar to the Ukraine Family Scheme to allow Palestinians trapped in Gaza to be reunited with family members in the UK. Mahmoud Almassri, 31, a Palestinian student in Edinburgh, is begging ministers to create a scheme to support his relatives who are “basically in prison” in Gaza.
