PACKED Palestine solidarity fringe meetings at the Labour conference in Liverpool heard calls for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further loss of civilian life after the events of the weekend — but speakers stressed that no end to the conflict is possible without ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

Hayes & Harlington MP John McDonnell told a sombre audience at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) meeting today that “the key factor now must be the protection of civilians. I’m so fearful, so worried that what’s happening in Gaza now will be almost an annihilation.”

He said as a parent his heart went out to all those who had lost loved ones in the last few days, Israeli and Palestinian. Only the Israeli dead were mentioned at a minute’s silence held at the conference on Monday.

PSC director Ben Jamal warned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call on civilians in Gaza to leave, in the knowledge that Israel will not allow the two million residents of what the UN terms the world’s biggest “open-air prison” to do so, “can only be interpreted as a declaration of the intent to slaughter thousands of innocent civilians.

“Those who rush to condemn the violence of Palestinians have no moral foundation on which to do that while they support the maintenance of the system of apartheid that is the root cause,” he said to stormy applause.

The message sent by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and London Mayor Sadiq Khan in projecting the Israeli flag on public buildings while it cuts off water, electricity and food from civilians in Gaza was “an endorsement of an ongoing military occupation, support for human rights violations and a green light for the Israeli government to proceed with intended war crimes.”

Rail union Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan told the meeting Israel was the first country where he had seen “my industry used as a tool of oppression,” with lines laid to incentivise illegal settlement and displacement of Palestinians.

At a Labour for Palestine meeting on Monday evening, Palestine’s ambassador to Britain Husam Zomlot revealed that six members of his own family had been killed in Israel’s bombing raids following Hamas’s killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians on Saturday morning.