GAZA - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu that Britain would stand by Israel in “its darkest hour”.

He also welcomed the decision to allow aid into Gaza and said Israel was doing all it could to limit civilian deaths.

“I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas which seeks to put civilians in harm’s way,” Mr Sunak said alongside Mr Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“I welcome your decision yesterday that you took to ensure that routes into Gaza will be opened for humanitarian aid to enter ... I’m proud to stand here with you. In Israel’s darkest hour as your friend. We will stand with you in solidarity. We will stand with your people and we also want you to win.”

Mr Sunak is in Israel to demonstrate support for the country’s war against Hamas. The militant group attacked southern Israel earlier in October, and Israel has retaliated since then.

On his part, Mr Netanyahu said the Hamas attack was aimed at preventing the expansion of peace in the Middle East. He called on Mr Sunak to keep supporting Israel’s Gaza counteroffensive.

“We were on the cusp of expanding that peace, and destroying that move was one of the reasons why this action was taken,” Mr Netanyahu told Mr Sunak at their meeting.

Mr Sunak’s trip to Israel follows US President Joe Biden’s visit on Wednesday.

After Israel, the British leader will fly to Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mr Sunak’s spokesperson said.

Mr Biden spent less than eight hours in Israel on Wednesday. He flew home the same night after having pledged support to Israel following the Hamas attack on Oct 7. The rampage killed around 1,400 people.

But Mr Biden appeared to have limited success in his other mission: to persuade Israel to ease the plight of 2.3 million Gazans under a total siege.

Since the Oct 7 assault, Israel has been bombarding the Gaza Strip. It said it wants to annihilate Hamas, the militant group that rules the enclave. That military action has killed about 3,800 people, according to Gazan authorities.

Mr Biden said he had secured an offer from Egypt to allow 20 aid trucks to reach Gaza at some point in the coming days.

It is a fraction of the 100 per day that UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council are needed.

During a speech, Mr Biden told Israelis: “While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Later he told reporters aboard Air Force One: “Israel has been badly victimised but the truth is they have an opportunity to relieve suffering of people who have nowhere to go... it’s what they should do.”

Israel said it would allow limited aid to reach Gaza from Egypt provided none of it benefits Hamas.

But it repeated its position that it will open its own checkpoints to let in aid only when all of the more than 200 hostages captured by the gunmen were set free.

And it made clear there would be no let-up in its bombing campaign: “In the Gaza Strip, every place where Hamas has touched or is touching will be struck and destroyed,” a colonel identified as the commander of Israel’s Ramat David air base told public broadcastrer Kan.

“We really are a war machine that knows how to do two or three times what is being done now.”

Mr Sunak landed in Tel Aviv hours after Mr Biden left, carrying similar messages of support and condolence for Israelis.

“Above all, I’m here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you,” Mr Sunak told Israeli reporters after landing.

Mr Sunak is due to visit other regional capitals after Israel.

In an early statement, he said a Gaza hospital blast on Tuesday that caused mass Palestinian casualties should be “a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict”.

Mr Sunak added that Britain would be at “the forefront of this effort”.

Alongside Mr Sunak’s visit, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who visited Israel last week, will travel to Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days to discuss the conflict and seek a peaceful resolution, his office said.

Britain said the three countries are “vital to international efforts to uphold regional stability, free hostages and allow humanitarian access to Gaza”.

Mr Cleverly will meet senior leaders there to discuss efforts to prevent the conflict spreading, the urgent need to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt to let aid reach those who need it and for Hamas to release hostages, Britain said.

Inside Gaza there was no let-up of the punishing Israeli bombardment that health officials say has also wounded more than 12,000 people.

In Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, an area of shops was reduced to rubble as far as the eye could see, with a toddler’s pink cot overturned on the ground, windows blown off a clothing store and damaged vehicles.

Mr Rafat Al-Nakhala, who had sought shelter in there after obeying Israel’s order for civilians to flee Gaza City in the north, said nowhere was safe.

“I’m over 70 years old, I’ve lived through several wars, it’s never been like this, it has never been this brutal, no religion and no conscience. Thank God. We only have hope in God, not in any Arab or Muslim country or anyone in the world, except for God.”

Footage obtained by Reuters from the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north showed residents digging with their bare hands inside a damaged building to free a small boy and girl trapped under masonry.

The body of a man was hauled out of the ruins on a stretcher as residents tried to light up the site with torches on their mobile phones.

The United Nations says around half of Gazans have been made homeless, still trapped inside the enclave, one of the most densely populated places on earth.

The plight of Gaza civilians has enraged the Middle East, making it more difficult for Mr Biden and other Western leaders to rally Arab allies to prevent the war from spreading. REUTERS