ISTANBUL

Nearly 60 British Labour MPs have called on the UK government to immediately recognize Palestine as a state and act urgently to stop what they described as “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, The Guardian reported Saturday.

The letter, organized by the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, was signed by 59 MPs from both centrist and left-wing blocs and sent to Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Thursday.

The MPs urged Lammy to take immediate action to halt Israel’s reported plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” of tents in the ruins of Rafah, in southern Gaza, warning that the plan amounts to the forcible transfer of civilians and the erasure of Palestinian presence.

"It is with great urgency and concern that we are writing to you regarding the Israeli defence minister’s announcement on Monday of his plans to forcibly transfer all Palestinian civilians in Gaza to a camp in the ruined city of Rafah without allowing them to leave," the letter said, calling the plan “ethnic cleansing.”

The lawmakers said the UK must act decisively, not only by restoring funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and supporting hostage releases, but also by imposing a trade blockade on goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

"By not recognising [Palestine] as a state, we undermine our own policy of a two-state solution and set an expectation that the status quo can continue and see the effective erasure and annexation of Palestinian territory," the MPs wrote.

The UK government, under the new Labour administration, has not yet formally altered its position on Palestinian statehood. The war in Gaza has entered its 10th month, amid what Palestinian officials and international observers have described as mass displacement, destruction of infrastructure, and the collapse of ceasefire negotiations.