STEPHEN GLOVER: I'm a supporter of Israel, but there comes a point when the killing wreaked on innocent people outweighs the original sin

The killing of seven aid workers, including three Britons, by Israeli forces in Gaza could mark a turning point in the war against Hamas.

Maybe it was a freak accident. But that's hard to believe, given that a single rogue missile didn't cause the mayhem, but three precisely targeted ones.

The incident has confirmed fears that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) haven't been as scrupulous in trying to avoid civilian deaths as the government in Jerusalem has claimed.

According to the United Nations, 196 aid workers (including the seven on Monday night) have been killed in the conflict. Were they also the victims of accidents?

In January, two members of an Al Jazeera media crew died when a targeted IDF missile hit their car. In March, video footage emerged from a captured drone showing four apparently innocent Palestinian men being killed as they strolled on wasteland.

James Kirby, Security Team member of the US-based aid group, was killed on Monday

John Chapman, Security Team member of the US-based aid group, was killed on Monday 

James (Jim) Henderson, Security Team member of the US-based aid group, was killed on Monday 

The IDF also shot dead three Israeli hostages last December, even though they were holding a makeshift white flag. The incident suggested the IDF are very free with their weaponry.

In January, six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab begged for help after five family members were killed as their car tried to outrun Israeli tanks and escape Gaza City. She died alongside two paramedics, who were trying to save her. Another accident?

And then, of course, there are 32,000 people, including Hamas fighters, who are said to have died in the conflict. This death toll is issued by the Hamas-run health ministry, and may well be inflated. Even so, it's surely possible, even likely, that many innocent Palestinians have died because their lives were held by the IDF at nought.

The killing of three British aid workers (all ex-servicemen) and four others has illuminated what should already have been apparent: Benjamin Netanyahu's government is pursuing this war with little regard for human life or stability in the Middle East. The King is evidently so concerned that he is taking a keen personal interest.

Palestinians inspect a vehicle with the logo of the World Central Kitchen wrecked by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah

I know the arguments, of course. Hamas is an evil organisation, which denies the Holocaust happened and is committed to the destruction of Israel. It is anti-Semitic and — as its liberal Western sympathisers should realise — undemocratic, misogynist and homophobic.

What Hamas did on October 7 in Israel was not merely barbaric. The murders, the rapes, the burning of bodies, the killing of babies and children, and the abduction of hostages were depraved. Israel couldn't reasonably have been expected to turn the other cheek, and I don't believe any developed country would have done so.

The determination of the Israeli government to extirpate Hamas, so it could never commit such crimes against Jews again, was wholly understandable, though very possibly not practicable.

Yet there comes a moment when the killing and destruction wreaked by the IDF on innocent people outweighs the original sin. I believe this moment has come.

We came to it on Monday night when the seven aid workers were killed. One of the dire effects of that action will be that many foreign aid agencies will withdraw from Gaza, or decline to go in.

A destroyed car where the body of Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, 6, who begged Gaza rescuers to send help after being trapped by Israeli military fire, was found along with the bodies of five of her family members

In truth, we may have come to it months ago when Netanyahu's government obstructed aid into Gaza. It has admittedly sanctioned tens of thousands of tonnes of food and medical equipment but, according to Israeli human rights organisations, has refused to grant permission for many mercy missions.

We probably came to it two weeks ago when Netanyahu approved plans to invade Rafah in southern Gaza, where 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. Such an attack — which the Israeli government believes can root out what remains of Hamas — would almost certainly lead to a humanitarian catastrophe.

So we have arrived at a point where the entire civilised world, led by the U.S., is urging the Israeli government to desist. Will it listen?

Let me answer that question by referring to the past. I believe that supporters of Israel — among whom I count myself — sometimes make a fundamental mistake. Perhaps because the country was born in the aftermath of the great crime that was the Holocaust, they forget that Israel has long had an extremist political undercurrent.

Admirers rightly extol visionary leaders such as Chaim Weizmann, the country's first president, and David Ben-Gurion, its first prime minister. Yitzhak Rabin, the former army general who worked for peace as prime minister before being assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995, was another hero.

These men were deeply patriotic, and prepared to defend their country against its Arab enemies, who tried to snuff out Israel from its inception in 1948. They were also pragmatic, and realised that, in the end, Israel would have to come to an accommodation with its neighbours.

But there is a darker strain in Israeli history represented by terrorist organisations such as the Stern Gang and Irgun, the latter of which carried out the bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, in which 98 people, including 28 British citizens, were killed.

Irgun and other terrorists were also responsible for the 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin, in which some 107 Palestinian villagers are thought to have died.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the aid workers deaths in Gaza was an 'unintentional' 'tragic incident' 

How many admirers of Israel know that in 1944 two Jewish terrorists assassinated Lord Moyne, British Minister-Resident for the Middle East, in Cairo? I find it shocking that in 1975 the Israeli government repatriated the bodies of the assassins (they had been executed by the British) and triumphantly laid them in state in Jerusalem.

I mention all this because we mustn't be blind to the extremist strand in Israeli politics. It is visible today among some hardline West Bank settlers, and in the far-Right parties on whose political support Benjamin Netanyahu depends.

For example, last November Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was 'one of the possibilities'. He was immediately criticised by several mainstream politicians, and momentarily disowned by Netanyahu.

Is Netanyahu an extremist? He is obdurate in his opposition to any settlement with moderate Palestinians (who do exist) and is pursuing the war against Hamas in such a brutal way that it is alienating Israel's allies — not least because his uncompromising behaviour threatens to plunge the Middle East into war.

Or is he a pragmatist at heart? After all, even Menachem Begin — a former Irgun terrorist who was distrusted by Margaret Thatcher for that reason — made an historic peace agreement with Egypt in 1979.

The next Israeli election isn't due until October 2026, though it could happen earlier, as many Israelis hope. The best outcome for their country would be Netanyahu's replacement now by a moderate, pragmatic leader.

Were Britain to stop its very modest arms sales to Israel, that would be a largely symbolic gesture, since Israel can do without them. But Israel can't so easily do without the moral support of allies such as Britain. Above all, it needs the logistical and diplomatic support of the United States.

The truth is that Israel is too small to stand alone, and it's in grave danger of losing friends. If the deaths of seven selfless aid workers serve to bring Benjamin Netanyahu's bloody onslaught to an end, they won't have died in vain.