THREE Hackney councillors resigned from Labour today over its “lily-livered stand” on the ongoing massacre in Gaza.

Socialists Penny Wrout, Fliss Premru and Claudia Turbet-Delof held a press conference outside the east London borough’s town hall.

Ms Wrout said they were leaving the party due to “the inadequacies about Labour’s national policies to address problems we have got at the moment but it’s also, crucially, about Labour’s lily-livered stand from the beginning on Gaza.”

She said Hackney Council needs “to act now” to sell its shares in an Israeli arms company “before the Tory government makes it illegal for them to do that.”

Last autumn, Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign said that £30 million of the council’s pension fund money is invested in companies supplying Israel with military equipment, technology and other supplies it is using in Gaza, including Elbit Systems.

The councillors were suspended earlier this year after backing the Green Party’s motion to discuss a ceasefire.

The council was contacted for comment.