ANDY Burnham has been urged to "sever all ties" with Israel and demand an immediate end to the occupation amid ongoing settler violence in the West Bank.
The National reported how Israeli settlers have trapped two Palestinian families in their homes in the occupied West Bank, with their water and power supplies cut off.
The Abu Ridi and Hassan families, who live on the outskirts of the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, have been appealing for help since Sunday.
Videos shared on social media show around a dozen Israeli security vehicles in the village, including a bulldozer. Footage also shows a long line of Israeli security forces making their way towards the Palestinian village, which is a closed military zone.
The stated aim of the settlers is to empty the area of its Palestinian residents.
The UK Government is set to announce a ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements, according to reports, but Burnham is being urged to go further in taking a stand against the occupation.
Former Labour leader and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn told The National the Prime Minister cannot continue to "turn a blind eye" to the suffering.
"The situation in the West Bank is disgraceful," he said.
"In Qusra, families have been forced from their own homes and subjected to daily violence by armed settlers and soldiers. This is what ethnic cleansing looks like.
"It is a fundamental violation of human rights and international law. We cannot turn a blind eye to this human suffering. Our government must end its complicity by stopping the sale of arms to Israel, banning trade with these illegal settlements and demanding an immediate end to the occupation."
Burnham has said in recent weeks Labour "didn't get it right" over Gaza while his First Secretary of State Louise Haigh has previously said it is "impossible to conclude that what is happening in Gaza is anything short of genocide".
But both of them have been accused of "failing to show leadership" over continuous Israeli aggression in the West Bank.
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and have been condemned by the UN security council.
Yet Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, previously said that the settlements would remain, saying that the security council "must understand a simple truth: We are not going anywhere."
Middle East expert Richard McNeil-Willson, based at the University of Edinburgh, told The National: "In the West Bank, Israel is using different mechanisms to the bombing and military invasion that characterises the genocide in Gaza.
"Settler militia continue to make life impossible for Palestinian communities, isolating and targeting families, and advancing the strangulation of any kind of Palestinian homeland.
"Whilst the Israeli government may pay lip service to removing those few settler encampments highlighted by international news media, settler violence has already claimed many Palestinian lives in the occupied West Bank just this year.
"Settler violence occurs under a highly permissive and actively supportive Israeli military that utilise weaponry against a civil population, and enable the long term proliferation of illegal settlement.
"In Scotland and the UK, we must put pressure on the government to hold Israel to the standards of international law, to prevent arms sales to Israel, and to isolate an apartheid regime, as was done against apartheid South Africa."
A top UN official told the security council on Tuesday that "the West Bank is at breaking point".
Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN's deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said that "settler violence has reached unprecedented levels".
Stop the War Scotland said Burnham has so far failed to take meaningful action and urged him to demand an end to the oppression and "immediately sever all ties" with Israel.
A spokesperson said: “The campaign of violence being waged by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, facilitated by the Israeli state and armed forces, is a disgrace that once again exposes the complicity of the British government.
"As the British ambassador to the UN recently admitted, this ongoing campaign of terror has been carried out with the oversight of IDF soldiers and is not a series of isolated incidents, but is systematic and coordinated.
"Now the British Government is standing idly by as Palestinian families are held hostage in their homes. Since becoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham has admitted that his predecessor “didn’t get it right” on Gaza. Beyond this understatement of the British state’s role in arming a genocide, he has failed to take meaningful action.
"Empty words and calls for legality will not suffice in the face of these horrors. The British Government should demand an end to the oppression of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and immediately severe all ties with the Israeli state.”
The UK Government has been approached for comment.
