The leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada have “strongly opposed” the expansion of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, threatening to “take concrete actions” if Israel does not cease its onslaught and lift restrictions on aid supply to the Palestinian enclave.

In a statement released on Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said they also oppose settlement expansions in the occupied West Bank. Settler violence has surged in the occupied West Bank as the world’s focus has remained on Gaza. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands displaced in Israeli raids.

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The statement comes weeks after the Netherlands urged the European Union (EU) to review a trade agreement with Israel as the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has intensified its bombardment of Gaza amid an aid blockade in place since March 2.

Western countries backed Israel’s right to self-defence when Netanyahu’s government launched a devastating offensive in Gaza on October 7, 2023. That offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians and turned vast swathes of Gaza into rubble.

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On Tuesday, the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that Israel has the right to defend itself, but its current actions go beyond proportionate self-defence.

So what steps might Western countries take against Israel, and has Israel’s latest Gaza onslaught forced them to change their position? Here is what you need to know:

What did the UK, France and Canada say?

The countries’ three leaders criticised Israel’s renewed Gaza offensive, while describing the “human suffering” of Palestinians in the coastal enclave as “intolerable”.

They also said that Israel’s announcement of letting some aid in was “wholly inadequate”.

“If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” the leaders’ statement said.

“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law.

“We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law.”

The three Western leaders said that while they supported Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’s attack on October 7, “this escalation is wholly disproportionate”.

“We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions,” they said.

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On Tuesday, the UK announced it would suspend trade talks with Israel over the Gaza war. It also imposed sanctions on settlers and organisations backing violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza and the government’s support for illegal settlements is “damaging our relationship with your government”, said British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Amid intense international pressure, Israeli authorities on Monday cleared nine aid trucks to enter Gaza, where harsh restrictions on food and aid have sparked accusations that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war.

However, the United Nations’ relief chief Tom Fletcher called the entry of the trucks a “drop in the ocean”, adding that “significantly more aid must be allowed into Gaza”.

Fletcher on Tuesday warned that 14,000 Palestinian babies were at risk of dying in the next 48 hours if aid doesn’t reach them – a figure he called “utterly chilling”. Some half a million people in Gaza, or one in five Palestinians, are facing starvation due to the Israeli blockade.

Starving Palestinians have resorted to eating animal feed and flour mixed with sand, highlighting acute suffering among the 2.3 million people in Gaza.

The UN humanitarian office’s spokesman Jens Laerke said on Tuesday that about 100 more trucks have been approved by Israel to enter Gaza.

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Shifting their focus to the occupied West Bank, the leaders of the UK, France and Canada said they opposed all attempts to expand Israeli settlements, as they are “illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians”.

“We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions,” they said.

Yara Hawari, co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, says the statement by the UK, Canada, and France is “reflective of states wanting to backtrack and try and cover up their complicity”, highlighting that the situation in Gaza is the “worst that it has ever been” and that “the genocide is reaching new levels of cruelty and inhumaneness”.

“They can point to the statement and say, you know, well, we did … stand up against it,” Hawari told Al Jazeera, adding that none have stopped arms sales to Israel.

Hawari specifically referenced the UK’s role, saying it was “particularly complicit in this”. “There are reports coming out every day on how many weapons have been transferred from the UK to Israel over the course of the last 19 months,” she said.

What else have Western nations said?

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said on Tuesday that her country will push for EU sanctions against Israeli ministers because of insufficient steps to protect civilians in Gaza.

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“Since we do not see a clear improvement for the civilians in Gaza, we need to raise the tone further. We will therefore now also push for EU sanctions against individual Israeli ministers,” Stenergard said in a statement.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot demanded that Israel’s “blind violence” and blockade of humanitarian assistance must come to an end.

On Monday, 24 countries, overwhelmingly European ones, issued a joint statement saying Israel’s decision to allow a “limited restart” of aid operations in Gaza must be followed by a complete resumption of unfettered humanitarian assistance.

It was signed by the foreign ministers of countries including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and the UK.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s top diplomat, Kallas, has decided to order a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a free trade deal between the two regions.

Kallas told Al Jazeera that the Netherlands earlier this month had sought review of the Association Agreement, particularly Article 2 – which states that both parties must respect human rights.

The move has been backed by other member states, including Belgium, France, Portugal and Sweden.

Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand, says the recent criticism emanating from Western capitals was in part due to public pressure.

“I think there’s a sense that in liberal democracies, they can’t ultimately be indifferent to public concern about the situation … I think another factor is a perception among many countries that [US President Donald] Trump himself is getting impatient with the Netanyahu government,” he told Al Jazeera.

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Patman explained that with many countries in the Global South having experienced colonialism before, they were quicker than the West to condemn Israel’s actions.

“They have a history of having to struggle for their own political self-determination, and given that experience, they can empathise with the Palestinians who’ve been denied the right,” he said.

How has Israel responded?

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday criticised Carney, Macron and Starmer following their joint statement.

“By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottawa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on 7 October while inviting more such atrocities,” he posted on X.

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lashed out at the three leaders, saying his country “will not bow its head before this moral hypocrisy, antisemitism, and one-sidedness”.

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In a post on X, Smotrich accused the three countries of “morally aligning themselves with a terrorist organisation”.

In particular, Smotrich took issue with the three countries saying they are “committed to recognising a Palestinian state”.

“They have gone so far as to seek to reward terrorism by granting it a state,” he said.

Netanyahu’s government and his far-right coalition partners have been vocal against the realisation of a sovereign Palestinian state despite broad international support for the so-called two-state solution.

What is ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariot’?

This major ground offensive, launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip on Sunday, came after days of intense bombardment that killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Since Sunday, more than 200 people have been killed in a relentless wave of strikes.

Major hospitals, including the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, have been rendered nonoperational after attacks by Israeli forces. Medical professionals said it could lead to the deaths of thousands of sick and wounded people.

With the backing of Israel’s lethal air force, the operation is targeting both southern and northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said the offensive was launched to expand “operational control” in the Gaza Strip. Israel says its campaign also aims to free the remaining captives held in Gaza and defeat Hamas.

However, Netanyahu has been repeatedly criticised by segments of Israeli society, including captives’ families, for failing to prioritise their return. He has also rejected Hamas’s offers to end the war and free the captives.

How will the Western actions impact Israel, and what’s next?

Andreas Krieg, senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said that the threats from the UK, France and Canada against Israel set a precedent for other Western governments to emulate.

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“While it will not have a direct impact on Israel’s behaviour on the ground, it widens the boundaries of discourse internationally and makes it easier for other governments to openly stand against Israeli atrocities,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Key to a change of behaviour in Israel, however, remains the United States,” he said. The US supplies the bulk of arms to Israel as well as providing diplomatic cover at the United Nations.

“Yet, there is a tangible erosion of consensus at play internationally as to the perception of Israel, which taints Israel increasingly as a rogue actor,” Krieg said.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told Al Jazeera that the “number one” thing the three countries could do was impose an arms embargo on Israel. “The UK has taken some measures to suspend some arms exports. It’s not enough. It has got to be full and comprehensive,” he said.

Zomlot also said that the states should act to ensure that “war criminals” were “held accountable”. “They must absolutely support our efforts at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice,” he said.

Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant face ICC arrest warrant for war crimes, but some European nations have said that they won’t arrest them.

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, questioned how the threatened sanctions would be targeted.

“Targeting whom? You need to impose sanctions on the state. It’s not about the prime minister. This is the entire government enterprise,” she told Al Jazeera.

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Krieg from King’s College London says the reputational damage will affect Israel far beyond the current war in Gaza.

“It will be difficult to build consensus in the future around the narrative that Israel is an ‘ally’ because it is ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’,” he told Al Jazeera.