100 former French and British ambassadors accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing

NEW: More than 100 former British and French ambassadors accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing and the 'erasure' of Palestine, urging Macron and Starmer to ban trade and arms sales to press Israel.

More than a hundred former British and French ambassadors are accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing.

In an unprecedented joint letter, they write of the erasure of Palestine, and they warn that the world no longer sees Israel as a genuine democracy. Their demand goes to Emmanuel Macron and to Keir Starmer directly. Ban trade, ban arms sales, and use that pressure to make Israel accept a Palestinian state.

These aren't activists. They're career diplomats, people who spent decades defending their governments' positions, now putting their names to some of the harshest language diplomacy has. And in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu's government has shown little sign that isolation moves it, with reporting suggesting his focus is on reelection.

So the letter now sits on two desks, in Paris and in London. Whether words like ethnic cleansing carry consequences, or stay on paper, is a decision that belongs to Macron and Starmer.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.