Britain, France, and Canada issued a rare public reprimand of Israel, demanding that it cease its renewed military offensive in Gaza — a call that laid bare growing rifts between Israel and traditional Western allies and prompted a furious Israeli response on Tuesday.
“We have always supported Israel’s right to defend Israelis against terrorism,” a joint statement by the three powerful allies said late on Monday, adding: “But this escalation is wholly disproportionate.”
They condemned the expanded Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza and monthslong restrictions on humanitarian aid as “egregious actions” — some of the sharpest rhetoric yet seen by major Western countries long supportive of Israel.
“If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” the statement said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Britain went one step further and said that it was suspending talks with Israel on expanding a free-trade agreement. It also announced that Britain would impose sanctions on several more extremist Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The moves reflected how international discontent with Israel is reaching new heights more than 19 months after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the Israeli war in Gaza. While governments worldwide rushed to back Israel after the assault, diplomatic support faded as the Israeli campaign led to a skyrocketing death toll in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had denounced the latest criticism earlier on Tuesday, saying that Britain, France and Canada had handed a “huge prize” to Hamas. He claimed the three were tacitly encouraging a repeat of the Oct. 7 attacks, which saw some 1,200 killed in Israel and 250 taken hostage.
“This is a war of civilization over barbarism,” Mr. Netanyahu said on social media. “Israel will continue to defend itself by just means until total victory is achieved.”
In announcing the suspension of free-trade talks with Israel hours later, David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, condemned what he said were Mr. Netanyahu’s plans to “drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.”
“Civilians in Gaza facing starvation, homelessness, trauma, desperate for this war to end, now confront renewed bombardment, new displacement and new suffering,” Mr. Lammy told Britain’s Parliament.
European officials had been privately expressing “increasing frustration and even anger with Israeli actions in Gaza,” said Hugh Lovatt, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
It was not immediately clear what further actions Britain, France and Canada intended to take if Israel did not heed their warning. But the public statement by three major Israeli allies on Monday night was “a significant change in tone and message,” said Mr. Lovatt.
In March, Israel ended a two-month cease-fire with Hamas that would have freed the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal. Mr. Netanyahu has said Israel could not accept anything less than for Hamas to disarm and for its leaders to leave Gaza and go into exile.
Mr. Netanyahu is now threatening an Israeli takeover of Gaza and the forced relocation of Palestinian civilians into designated areas. Israel already barred humanitarian aid from Gaza for more than two months, leading the United Nations to warn of possible famine.
Critics say the pending military operation would have an even more devastating impact on Palestinian civilians. More than 53,000 people have already been killed in Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, according to Gaza health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
And it is far from clear whether an even more intense Israeli assault would defeat Hamas. Israeli forces have already reduced much of Gaza to rubble, even as Hamas has fought a stubborn insurgency and recruited thousands of new fighters to its ranks.
The United States, Israel’s most powerful patron and staunchest supporter, has not publicly criticized the renewed Israeli offensive. But President Trump has increasingly bypassed Mr. Netanyahu, cutting a separate deal with Hamas to free the last living American hostage and skipping Israel on his trip to Middle East.
Much of the international criticism has centered around the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, a direct consequence of the two-month Israeli blockade that barred food, medicine and other essential relief from entering the Palestinian enclave.
Aid organizations suspended their operations as food stockpiles dwindled. Doctors reported malnutrition among children, and the United Nations recently said that people across the enclave were at risk of famine.
Over the weekend, Israel finally said it would begin allowing some humanitarian aid into Gaza. But authorities let only five trucks in on Monday, barely a trickle in the face of enormous needs. Even those trucks had yet to be collected by Tuesday morning by U.N. officials, who require Israeli permission to reach the area near Gaza’s border with Israel.
European officials met in Brussels on Tuesday, in part to discuss a Dutch request to examine whether Israel had violated its association agreement with the European Union over grave human rights violations against the Palestinians.
On Tuesday, Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said the European Union could ultimately decide to suspend its agreement with Israel unless the Gaza offensive were halted. That would put Israel in the same category as Syria, Liberia and Zimbabwe, among others.
“The blind violence and the humanitarian blockade by the Israeli government have made Gaza into a deathtrap,” Mr. Barrot said in a radio interview.
Nick Cumming-Bruce, Gabby Sobelman and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe.
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