Cameron tells Netanyahu the UK still believes in need for two-state solution

Lord David Cameron has told Benjamin Netanyahu that “it’s time for an immediate pause in the fighting” in Gaza as he pushed the Israeli prime minister over a two-state solution without the involvement of Hamas.

During a meeting in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the Foreign Secretary said: “The scale of suffering in Gaza is unimaginable. More must be done, faster, to help people trapped in this desperate situation.”

Cameron added: “What I was saying is, look, it’s time for an immediate pause in the fighting because we’ve got to not only get the aid in, but, crucially, we’ve got to get those hostages out.”

But the former prime minister said he had also pushed the current Israeli PM to contemplate a “plan for how you turn that pause into a permanent, sustainable ceasefire without a return to fighting. He added of his meeting with Netanyahu: “That’s what I was pushing on him.”

Cameron also stressed Britain still believes in the need for a two-state solution, after the Israeli prime minister rejected allies’ demands for Palestinian statehood.

He also called for the protection of medics and hospitals in the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s massacre on 7 October.

Cameron also met with the families of kidnapped hostages on his latest visit to the region.

The Tory peer also met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah during his trip to the Middle East.