Keir Starmer will recall his cabinet from their summer break for an emergency meeting on the Gaza crisis this week as cross-party MPs warned his talks with Donald Trump provided a critical juncture in helping to resolve the conflict.
Amid growing international horror over the situation on the ground in Gaza, he will urge the US president to take a tougher stance towards Israel and will push for ceasefire talks to resume, when they meet in Scotland on Monday.
David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, is also preparing to attend a UN conference on a two-state solution in New York this week at which the pathway to formally recognising a Palestinian state will be under discussion.
Government sources insisted that formal recognition of Palestinian statehood was a matter of “when, not if”, with the Labour government under intense domestic pressure to take further action as UK public opinion hardens.
Downing Street sources said the government would set out its next steps to help resolve the situation in the Middle East in the coming days, but gave scant details, risking fuelling further criticism of Starmer over his response.
Government sources insisted the prime minister was “unequivocal” in his concern over the scenes in Gaza and was “horrified” at images of starvation, desperation and suffering of children and babies, as he called his cabinet back to Westminster.
During his talks with Trump at his Turnberry golf course in Ayrshire, Starmer is expected to press the US president to use his influence over the Israeli government to push for a resumption of peace talks between Israel and Hamas, after talks ground to a standstill.
The deal under discussion was expected to include a 60-day ceasefire, with aid supplies ramped up as conditions for a lasting truce were brokered, but the US and Israel withdrew their negotiation teams from Qatar on Thursday.
Starmer is also coming under growing domestic pressure, including from his own cabinet and a third of Labour MPs, to formally recognise a Palestinian state.
The government has disappointed many on its own side by saying this would only happen as part of a negotiated peace deal. In contrast, Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday that France would formally recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly in September.
UK government aides suggested France’s move would be purely symbolic without a path towards peace, which diplomats are expected to discuss next week at the UN.
Starmer is also expected to discuss progress in implementing the economic deal the UK has signed with the US, which slashes some of Trump’s tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, and which the UK hopes will be the first step towards a closer trading relationship.
After meeting European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, Trump announced the US and the EU had struck a trade deal that would impose tariffs of 15% on most imports from the bloc, and will have a major impact on the UK economy.
However, MPs from across the Commons underlined the urgency of Starmer’s talks with the US president for the people of Gaza as they called on the prime minister to press Trump to take a more hardline stance towards Israel on aid and a ceasefire.
Emily Thornberry, chair of the influential foreign affairs select committee, told the Guardian: “Netanyahu only listens to Trump, and even then only sometimes. But somebody has to talk to the Israelis and nothing is going to move in this awful situation without him.
“Trump needs to hear that he has the strength of 10 presidents, that only he can get a ceasefire. But it’s high risk for Keir as it could anger him and it’s not even clear whether it would work. But he has to try, this is the moment it has to be done.
“Trump also needs to hear that allies, including the UK, French and Saudis, are prepared to work together to put together peace proposals but they will only work if they result in two states: Israel and Palestine.”
Conservative MP Kit Malthouse, a former cabinet minister, added: “Every moment of inaction is a deliberate choice. These two leaders hold the power to end the starvation and killings in Gaza, to halt the violence in the West Bank, and to bring the hostages home with a permanent ceasefire.
“If they fail to act, history will not only remember the atrocities, it will remember that they had the means to stop them and chose not to.”
Palestinians in Gaza have reacted with wariness after Israel began a limited, daily pause in fighting in three populated areas of Gaza to allow what Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “minimal” amount of aid into the territory.
Scores of Palestinians have died of starvation in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by humanitarian organisations and the UN to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory.
Israel also said it would establish humanitarian corridors to allow the UN to deliver food and medicine to Gaza, as well as turn on the power to a desalination plant to provide water.
Lammy welcomed the resumption of humanitarian corridors in the territory but called for access to supplies to be “urgently” widened over the coming hours and days, saying that military pauses promised by Israel would not alone be enough to ease suffering in Gaza.
“This announcement alone cannot alleviate the needs of those desperately suffering in Gaza,” the foreign secretary said.
“We need a ceasefire that can end the war, for hostages to be released and aid to enter Gaza by land unhindered.
“Whilst airdrops will help to alleviate the worst of the suffering, land routes serve as the only viable and sustainable means of providing aid into Gaza. These measures must be fully implemented and further barriers on aid removed. The world is watching.”
Britain is working with Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza and evacuate children needing medical assistance, with military planners deployed for further support.
However, the head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency has warned that such efforts are “a distraction” that will fail to properly address deepening starvation in the strip, and could in some cases harm civilians.