Starmer suggests UK will play role in new Gaza aid air drops

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested that the UK will play a role in dropping aid into Gaza by air after more than a third of MPs signed a letter calling on the government to recognise a Palestinian state.

On Friday, Israel said it would allow foreign countries to deliver air supplies in the coming days amid mounting international concern about humanitarian conditions in the territory.

“News that Israel will allow countries to airdrop aid into Gaza has come far too late – but we will do everything we can to get aid in via this route,” the prime minister wrote in The Mirror.

Sir Keir also said the UK was “urgently accelerating efforts” to evacuate children who need critical medical assistance to the UK for treatment.

It comes as he faces growing pressure to recognise a Palestinian state – on Friday, France committed to recognising Palestinian statehood within months.

Some 220 MPs from nine political parties – more than half of them Labour – signed a joint letter which said such a move would send a “powerful” message and a vital step toward a two-state solution.

US President Donald Trump suggested French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement “doesn’t matter” as he left the US for a visit to Scotland.

In an earlier statement after an emergency phone call with President Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Sir Keir said recognising Palestinian statehood would have to be part of a “wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution”.

On Friday evening, Sir Keir said the government would “pull every lever” to deliver food and life-saving support to Palestinians. “This humanitarian catastrophe must end,” he added in a post on X.

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The UK has been involved in previous efforts to airdrop aid into Gaza – a method aid agencies have cautioned is an inefficient way to deliver supplies.

The previous Conservative government struck a deal with Jordan to deliver aid by air in 2024. Tonnes of supplies including medicines, food and fuel were dropped into northern Gaza by parachute from Jordanian Air Force planes.

The same year the Royal Air Force began conducting air drops directly. The RAF went on to deliver over 100 tonnes of food over the course of 11 flights between March and May, according to the government.

Israeli media reported that the United Arab Emirates and Jordan would carry out the latest drops, but a senior Jordanian official told the BBC that its military was yet to receive permission from Israel to do so.

The UN has described the move as a “distraction to inaction” by the Israeli government.

Its food aid programme warned that almost one in three people in Gaza are going for days without eating.

“Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment,” the World Food Programme said in a statement.

Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into the Palestinian territory, has repeatedly said that there is no siege and blames Hamas for cases of malnutrition.

Since the outbreak of war in Gaza, two children with serious health conditions have been brought to the UK for private medical treatment.

The young girls were granted temporary visas, arriving in the UK in May from Egypt with the assistance of Project Pure Hope, a humanitarian healthcare initiative.