BLACKBURN with Darwen councillors have condemned both Israel’s military action in Gaza and the ‘barbarism’ of the Islamic State Jihadist group.

Its full Council Forum meeting supported two motions calling for an end to conflict and slaughter in the Middle East.

The debate followed Blackburn Cathedral Canon Shannon Ledbetter leading a prayer for peace.

The first, proposed by Little Harwood Labour councillor Naushad Surve, ‘condemned ‘the totally disproportionate military action by the Israeli government in the recent conflict in Gaza’.

It said there was ‘no justification for the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and schools and other places of refuge with the resulting high numbers of children among the casualties’.

Coun Surve criticised the UK government’s lack of action to stop the bombing of ‘an occupied people’.

Palestinian-born Whitehall Liberal Democrat Karimeh Foster attacked the failure of the Israeli government to ‘take part in meaningful negotiations’ and said Gaza was ‘a virtual prison’.

The Tories together with Sudell LibDem Paul Browne abstained as the motion was overwhelmingly passed. The second motion, proposed by Queens Park Labour councillor Mustafa Desai and passed unanimously, condemned ‘the human rights abuses carried out by the barbaric organisation know as the Islamic State’ branding it ‘depraved and uncivilised’.

Coun Desai said its actions were ‘unIslamic’.

* Borough leader Kate Hollern responded to a question from Asif Mahmud from ‘Drive of Justice’ about cutting council with companies supplying Israel’s military by saying: “We have not so far indentified any’.