SIR KEIR STARMER’S government faced fresh condemnation yesterday for its failure to oppose Israel’s brutal war on the Palestinians as the country’s military began a ground offensive into Gaza City and a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that Israel is committing genocide.

“Gaza is burning,” boasted Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz. “We will not relent and we will not go back — until the completion of the mission.”

Residents remaining in the city, where one tower block after another has been destroyed in the run-up to the offensive, were warned to leave and move south.

The report by a team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council calls on the international community to end the genocide and take steps to punish those responsible for it.

Created four years ago, the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel has repeatedly documented human rights abuses and violations in Gaza and other Palestinian areas since the deadly October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack that sparked Israel’s current killing spree.

After a painstaking legal analysis, examining both actions and intent, the commission said Israel had committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined under an international convention adopted in 1948.

“The commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said its chairman Navi Pillay. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

Israel, of course, rejected what it called a “distorted and false” report, but the findings could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or the UN International Court of Justice.

Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana said Sir Keir and his Labour ministers “must be held criminally accountable.”

She wrote on X: “For nearly two years, we’ve witnessed the deliberate slaughter of civilians, starvation of an entire population  and the systematic destruction of hospitals and essential infrastructure.

“Yet just two weeks ago, the UK government claimed it had not concluded Israel was acting with genocidal intent.

“It continues to arm Israel’s genocide, provide RAF reconnaissance support and roll out the red carpet for Israeli war criminals.

“The government’s position was already morally indefensible. It is now politically untenable.”

Labour MP Bell Riberio-Addy said that the government “cannot continue hiding from this reality,” adding: “We need a full arms embargo, an end to military co-operation and wide-ranging sanctions.”

SNP Middle East spokesman Brendan O’Hara MP said: “The Labour government will be remembered in the history books for its complicity in a genocide…”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper described Israel’s ground assault on Gaza City as “reckless and appalling.”

However, a Stop the War Coalition spokeswoman noted that “she’s so far still hiding behind the government line that only the courts can rule on genocide,” arguing that Labour ministers “who continue to arm Israel’s genocide, while denying its existence, all belong in The Hague, as does … US President [Donald] Trump.”

A coalition of 13 groups, including Campaign Against Arms Trade, Global Justice Now and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, called on the government to “immediately review its flawed genocide assessment methodology, take urgent measures to end its complicity and impose sanctions on Israel and those aiding its military campaign.”

At a summit on Monday Arab and Muslim nations denounced last week’s Israeli strike on a Hamas leadership meeting in Doha, but they stopped short of any serious action, though Egypt did refer to Israel as the “enemy” for the first time in many years..

An Israeli military official said that the “main phase” of the Gaza City operation had begun, with troops moving in towards the centre, and that there were believed to be 2,000 to 3,000 Hamas militants left in the city.

According to a UN estimate issued on Monday, over 220,000 Palestinians have fled northern Gaza over the past month. About one million were living in the region before the evacuation warnings.

Long lines of traffic stretched down Gaza’s coastal road yesterday, with vehicles loaded down with mattresses and other belongings, while others fled on foot.

Palestinian residents reported heavy strikes across Gaza City in the morning.

By noon, the city’s Shifa hospital had received 34 bodies, said hospital official Dr Rami Mhanna, with dozens of wounded also brought in.

Israel also carried out air strikes on the Yemeni city of Hodeida, targeting what it said was “military infrastructure.”

The Houthi authorities said their air defences had forced some combat formations to turn back.

Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners attended funeral services for 31 Yemeni journalists killed in Israeli air strikes on the capital Sanaa last week.