BRITAIN’S largest Civil Service union has demanded an urgent meeting with the Cabinet Office after Foreign Office staff were told to consider resigning if they disagree with the government’s Israel policy.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said that the letter from more than 300 staff to the Foreign Secretary was met with a “dismissive and inadequate response by senior civil servants.”

The union said today it had written to Cabinet Secretary Cat Little to “restate our concerns that the government may be putting UK civil servants at risk of liability for crimes committed by the Israeli state and placing them in position of conflict given their obligations under the Civil Service code.”

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “PCS is extremely concerned that the government continues to ignore our members’ concerns that they may held liable under international law for the war crimes being committed daily by the state of Israel.

“Given the scale of the death toll and the depth of the destruction to Palestinian society in Gaza, this matter is urgent and government officials need to act quickly.”

She said that it is “blindingly obvious that potential war crimes and acts of genocide are taking place,” urging ministers to prevent them from happening by stopping “all work within the Civil Service and its related areas which in any way potentially enables acts of genocide.”

“Confused messaging from the government has only made matters worse, taking the UK from a position of unconditional support for the actions of the Israeli state to one of veiled criticism,” she added.

PCS members reaffirmed their commitment to the Palestinian people in their struggle to achieve freedom from Israel’s cruel and unjust apartheid system and the achievement of a free and independent state at the union’s annual conference last month.

They agreed that no PCS member should be put at risk of being liable for aiding or assisting genocide and pledged to fully back any member facing any sort of disciplinary action for refusing to work on any arms export licence to Israel.

Foreign Office staff raised concerns about British “complicity” in Israel’s “stark … disregard for international law” in Gaza in a letter sent to Foreign Secretary David Lammy last month.

The Cabinet Office was contacted for comment.