Exclusive: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar to visit the UK next week
Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar is set to visit the UK next week, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Multiple sources close to the British government confirmed Sa'ar is expected to make an official visit, likely next Thursday. The Foreign Office declined to comment.
The revelation comes shortly after Sa'ar attempted to justify Israel’s recent decision to cut off aid to Gaza, claiming without evidence that humanitarian assistance fuels Hamas.
"Aid that goes to Hamas is not humanitarian," Sa’ar said on 4 March, portraying the blockade as legitimate, despite it being considered an act of collective punishment under international law.
The British government has criticised the blockade, including Israel's decision to cut electricity from the Gaza Strip, warning it "risks breaching Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law".
The visit next week by such a high-ranking Israeli minister will be seen as controversial because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
And it comes at a particularly awkward time for the Labour government - Emily Thornberry, chair of parliament's foreign affairs select committee, asked the government on Tuesday to intervene after Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, secretly filmed her and posted the footage on Instagram.
Thornberry told Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer that "a video of us at the Knesset meeting the deputy foreign minister has been posted on Instagram".
"We understand that, I mean, certainly we had no knowledge that it was being videoed and assumed, of course, that it would never happen and, I have to say, I've just found out about it, and to say that I'm cross might be an understatement."
Sa'ar may have tough questions to answer next week.
A key player in Netanyahu's government, he is an avowed opponent of the two-state solution and said last November that "creating a Palestinian state today would be tantamount to creating a Hamas state".
On this and other issues, Sa'ar's stance differs dramatically from that of the British government, which officially backs a two-state solution and recently announced its support for Egypt's plan for Gaza's reconstruction.
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