In a letter to the Guardian, MPs, union leaders and others say that as head of government Israeli prime minister must bear responsibility for war crimes

A group of union leaders, Labour MPs and other prominent leftwingers has denounced Binyamin Netanyahu’s official visit to Britain this week, saying that as head of government the Israeli prime minister “must bear responsibility for war crimes identified by the UN human rights council in its investigation into Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza”.

In a joint letter published in the Guardian, they say the Israeli government has created “hell” in Gaza, and that Palestinians fleeing the situation had been among the refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean this year. “Our prime minister should not be welcoming the man who presides over Israel’s occupation and its siege on Gaza,” the letter reads.

The authors point to the results of a UN inquiry into the 2014 Gaza war, which found that both the Israeli armed forces and Hamas were responsible for possible war crimes. During the conflict in July and August of last year, Israel carried out 6,000 airstrikes and fired 50,000 tanks and artillery shells, killing 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of them children.

Netanyahu deserves sanctions, not a welcome to the UK, say union leaders and others | Letter Read more

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortar rounds towards Israel, killing six civilians and injuring at least 1,600.

The international criminal court is conducting a preliminary investigation into the conduct of the war in the face of stiff Israeli opposition, while more than 105,000 Britons have signed an online petition calling for Netanyahu to be arrested on war crimes charges when he arrives, passing the 100,000-signature threshold required for parliament to consider a debate on the issue.

Israel’s foreign ministry has previously described the petition as “a PR exercise with no real meaning”.

“Bilateral ties between Britain and Israel are closer than ever before, as evidenced by data on mutual trade, doubled in recent years, and by cooperation in academic studies, culture and science between the two countries,” it said.

Netanyahu rejected the UN report when it was published in June, describing it as biased. “The commission that wrote it is under a committee that does everything but protect human rights,” he said.

The letter protesting against his visit on Thursday is signed by the leaders of Unite, RMT, Aslef and TSSA unions, the Labour MPs Jo Stevens and Cat Smith, the SNP MP Tommy Sheppard, the film director Ken Loach, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah and the comedian Alexei Sayle.

UN accuses Israel and Hamas of possible war crimes during 2014 Gaza conflict Read more

“While Cameron continues to impose limits on the number of refugees who can take shelter in the UK, he is willing to welcome Netanyahu to our shores … We call on him to instead impose immediate sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel until it complies with international law and ends the blockade and the occupation,” the letter reads.

The visit is expected to trigger widespread protests and stiff security measures. There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Israeli embassy in London or Downing Street. In an earlier response to calls for Netanyahu’s arrest, however, a UK government statement said he would have immunity as a visiting head of government.

“We recognise that the conflict in Gaza last year took a terrible toll. As the prime minister said, we were all deeply saddened by the violence and the UK has been at the forefront of international reconstruction efforts,” the statement said. “However, the prime minister was clear on the UK’s recognition of Israel’s right to take proportionate action to defend itself, within the boundaries of international humanitarian law.”