BRITISH ministers risk being “judged as participants in a policy of cold-blooded mass murder” unless they drop the weasel words and stop facilitating Israel’s war, peace campaigners warned today.

Palestinians returning home described a “wasteland” in the central Gaza city of Khan Younis after Israeli troops withdrew following a 22-day operation.

And images of similar devastation flooded the internet from the occupied West Bank, where Israel has opened what is effectively a new front in the war in recent days.

What Israel described as “raids” on towns including Jenin, Tulakrem and Tubas left houses reduced to rubble and burnt-out vehicles. In Jenin, they killed the local Hamas leader Wissam Hazem.

At the UN security council, China sounded the alarm over the massive escalation in the West Bank, which has seen heightened settler violence, killing hundreds, and mass arrests since Israel’s invasion of Gaza began in October.

“Gaza has now turned into hell on Earth. We must never allow the same humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza to happen in the West Bank, which will turn the West Bank into another hell on Earth,” its deputy permanent representative to the UN Geng Shuang said, noting that Israel continued its illegal settlement expansion in defiance of multiple UN resolutions.

Britain’s Foreign Office said today it was “deeply worried” by Israel’s conduct in the West Bank.

“We recognise Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure,” a spokesperson said.

“The risk of instability is serious and the need for de-escalation urgent. We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint, adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions.

“The UK strongly condemns settler violence and inciteful remarks such as those made by Israel’s National Security Minister [Itamar] Ben-Gvir, which threaten the status-quo of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem.”

Mr Ben-Gvir last week said he would build a synagogue on the site of the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

But Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition told the Morning Star that such remarks showed the Foreign Office was “in a state of delusion.

“Israel isn’t interested in a ceasefire. 

“Not content with daily massacres in Gaza, it has launched its most deadly assault on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank for decades. This in the midst of what are supposed to be peace negotiations. Yet all the British Foreign Office does is express concern at ‘Israel’s methods.’

“In the future they will be judged as participants in a policy of cold-blooded mass murder.”

The UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese dismissed the claim Israel has a right to deploy troops in the West Bank for self-defence.

She cited an International Court of Justice ruling from two decades ago that determined Israel “cannot invoke self-defence under article 51 of the UN Charter” in illegally occupied territory, and added that in July “the court indicated that Israel’s very presence in the [occupied Palestinian territories] is itself unlawful.

“Israel’s perversion of the law on self-defence must be recognised for what it is: a brazen attempt to provide an imprimatur of ‘legality’ to the maintenance of its unlawful aggression against the territorial integrity and political independence of the state of Palestine,” she warned.

Israel launched further bombing raids over Jenin today, as the confirmed death toll from its three-day-old rampage through the West Bank reached 19. Since October, Palestinian authorities say 633 people have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, alongside the official death toll of 40,000 from the Gaza war. British medical journal the Lancet has estimated the true death toll in Gaza could reach as high as 180,000, with official figures only recording deaths confirmed by hospitals.

In Gaza, Israel struck a convoy carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati hospital, killing several transport workers. It claimed without providing evidence that it opened fire after the convoy was seized by gunmen.

It claimed to have completed its operation in Khan Younis, saying it had killed 250 “militants,” destroyed miles of underground tunnels and recovered the corpses of six hostages taken by Hamas in its October 7 raid into Israeli territory, which killed 1,139 Israelis and kidnapped about 250.

Palestinians ordered to evacuate Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah could now return, the Israeli military said, though it has regularly bombed Palestinians in supposed safe zones.

Israel has agreed to pause operations in Gaza tomorrow for the World Health Organisation to undertake a polio vaccination drive. The disease, eradicated in Gaza before the end of the last century, has returned as a result of the destruction of medical infrastructure and restrictions on the delivery of medical supplies, including vaccines.