Will the UK’s approach to Israel-Palestine change with new Prime Minister Starmer?

Palestinians in Gaza express skepticism that the Labour leader will alleviate their situation as analysts speculate about potential policy shifts.

Deir el-Balah, Gaza and London, United Kingdom – Israa Saleh, a petite and softly spoken Palestinian doctor who wears a colourful hijab, has mourned for months.

Her colleague Maisara al-Rayyes was killed in November when an Israeli air strike flattened his family home in Gaza City. His remains are still under the rubble.

Saleh described al-Rayyes, who like her was awarded a prestigious Chevening scholarship by the British government, as a “brother”.

“I still grieve over the loss,” she told Al Jazeera in Deir el-Balah, the central Gaza city she has fled to having been displaced 10 times in the past nine months. “This war has stolen everything from us.”

She returned to Gaza in 2022 having completed a master’s degree in Liverpool, a city that reminded her of the Strip with its “coastal nature” and “amazing” people.

War in Gaza ‘top of mind in terms of foreign policy’

Israa Saleh, a doctor with Medecins du Monde, has been displaced several times during the war [Courtesy: Israa Saleh]

Asaad al-Kurd is a teacher with UNRWA, the agency that several countries including the UK stopped funding after Israel claimed 12 of its 30,000 staffers played a part in the Hamas-led October 7 incursion into southern Israel, during which 1,139 people were killed. Israel has not provided evidence to support these allegations.

As the death toll in Gaza nears 40,000 people, Olivia O’Sullivan, director of the UK in the World programme at the Chatham House think tank, said the war is “top of mind in terms of foreign policy” for the new Labour government.

She told Al Jazeera that changes in “big policy questions”, as opposed to differences in rhetoric, would signal a departure from the previous Tory administration.

Resuming UNRWA funding, a shift on arms exports to Israel, or explicitly backing the jurisdiction of international courts would indicate that Labour was on a different path, she said.

Palestinian statehood and domestic divisions

Asaad Al-Kurd, a 51-year-old English teacher and father-of-six in Deir el-Balah [Courtesy: Asaad al-Kurd]

Labour’s manifesto pledged to ultimately recognise Palestinian statehood as part of a “renewed peace process” towards a two-state solution.

But since the Conservatives in January suggested the UK could recognise a Palestinian state before the end of a peace process, Labour’s promise is not interpreted by analysts as revolutionary.

Spain, Norway and Ireland recognised the State of Palestine this year, irritating Israel.

“It is very unlikely that the new Labour government would do this,” said Glen Rangwala, associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. “Their manifesto commitment … makes recognition conditional upon the resumption of a negotiating process … in effect, this enables stalling on the issue of recognising Palestinian statehood.”