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UK Conservative politician says Israel kills Palestinian kids, did foreign minister agree?

The UK “will continue to oppose violations and abuse of international human rights or international humanitarian law by the government of Israel or the Palestinian Authority,” Minister David Butley responded. Britain’s National Jewish Assembly slammed the comments.

By World Israel News Staff

British Conservative politician Paul Bristow told the House of Commons on Tuesday that Israel killed “dozens of Palestinian children” in 2023 and called on the Netanyahu government to show “compassion and restraint,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

Voicing a moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorists – many of them teens – and IDF soldiers who conducted a counterterrorism raid in Jenin, he demanded that “all sides” put “respect for human life first.”

Addressing UK Foreign Officer Minister David Butley, he said:

“We should never become immune to those deaths, and the tragedy of those deaths. Will the minister agree with me and urge the Israeli government to show compassion and restraint and urge all sides to put respect for human life first?”

Rutley said that Bristow had made an “important point. “Every one of those deaths is tragic,” he said, adding that in a recent report, the UK’s Foreign Office stated that the PA-administered territories were a “human rights priority.”

The UK “will continue to oppose violations and abuse of international human rights or international humanitarian law by the government of Israel or the Palestinian Authority,” he vowed.


Britain’s National Jewish Assembly (NJA) put out a press release the next day, expressing its “deep disappointment and concern over the misleading and unsubstantiated comments made by Conservative MP Paul Bristow, accusing Israel of killing ‘dozens of Palestinian children’ in military operations this year. The NJA firmly rejects these baseless claims, which ignore the complex realities on the ground and perpetuate a biased narrative.”

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National Jewish Assembly Chairman Gary Mond said that Bristow’s comments “give the erroneous impression that the Israeli army is deliberately targeting so-called children. The truth is that the young people who have died are members of Palestinian terrorist factions, who carry weapons with the intention of killing Israelis. While all deaths are tragic, these are happening in the context of self-defense.

“It is essential to note that the so-called ‘children’ mentioned by Mr. Bristow are, by and large, teenagers who are fully-fledged members of Palestinian terrorist organisations. Israel, like any sovereign state, has the right and responsibility to protect its citizens from terrorist militants and maintain security in the face of ongoing threats.”

According to the NJA, “Rutley further asserted that Israel is not serious in its commitment to the Two-State Solution, yet failed to point to any Palestinian interlocutor who is committed to this resolution. The NJA encourages Rutley to reflect on whether the Palestinian leadership – be it in the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad – is seriously committed to the Two-State Solution, before singling out Israel to blame for the failure of it to materialise.

“Furthermore, the NJA raises concerns regarding Minister Rutley’s assertion that so-called settlements are illegal under international law. It is important to note that presence of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria is a complex matter, and the NJA rejects Rutley’s reductionist approach to the topic. Simplifying the issue undermines the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and overlooks the need for direct negotiations to address the final status of settlements.

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“The Oslo Accords, which are still in effect, place Area C of Judea and Samaria in full control of Israel. This agreement was signed by Palestinian leaders at the time. Rutley’s generalisation about all settlements runs counter to the letter and the spirit of the Accords.

“The NJA urges MPs and public figures to engage in informed and responsible discussions, rather than to perpetuate false narratives. Accusing Israel without proper evidence and disregarding the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict undermines the prospects for meaningful dialogue and a just resolution.”

BBC influence

Earlier this month, BBC journalist Anjana Gadgil, in an interview with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, accused the IDF of intentionally killing Palestinian children during the counterterrorism operation in Jenin.

“The Israeli military are calling this a ‘military operation,’ but we know that young people are being killed, four of them under 18,” Anjana Gadgil told Bennett. “Is that really what the military set out to do, to kill people between the ages of 16 and 18?”

Following an uproar, Gadgil disabled her Twitter account. The BBC, which has a history of anti-Israel bias, issued a semi-apology, saying that “while this was a legitimate subject to examine in the interview, we apologize that the language used in this line of questioning was not phrased well and was inappropriate.”