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Lord Cameron has revealed he was “working up” sanctions on two Israeli ministers during his time as foreign secretary.

The former prime minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he had intended to target Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gevir, the national security minister, as a means of putting “pressure on Netanyahu”.

Lord Cameron said: “Before we left office I was working up sanctions on these two ministers, ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gevir, who, when you look at what they say, they have said things like encouraging people to stop aid convoys going into Gaza, they have encouraged extreme settlers in the West Bank with the appalling things they have been carrying out.

“So, actually saying to Netanyahu, ‘yes, we support your right to self-defence, no, we are not going to end the sale of arms, but actually when ministers in your government who are extremists and behave in this way, we are prepared to use our sanctions regime to say this is not good enough and has to stop’.”

Pressed on why the sanctions did not happen, he said it would have been “too much of a political act” during the general election campaign.

Lord Cameron suggested sanctions would be preferable to the “wrong path” of suspending all arms sales, urging Sir Keir Starmer’s administration to “look again at this sanctions issue”.

Source: telegraph.co.uk