UK rows back on ex-PM’s claim Israel is outside remit of international criminal court

The Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell told MPs ‘all parties to a conflict must afford civilians the protection that is their right under international law’. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP

The British government appears to have withdrawn an assertion made by the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, that the international criminal court has no jurisdiction in Israel, amid a wider western shift to more pointed criticism of the way Israel is conducting its campaign to remove Hamas from Gaza.

In a statement to MPs on Tuesday, the Foreign Office minister, Andrew Mitchell, said: “It is not for ministers to seek to state where the ICC has jurisdiction; that is for the chief prosecutor. The chief prosecutor has not been silent on this matter, and I am sure he will continue to express his views.”