WARRINGTON Borough Council looks set to ‘stand ready to provide support and open our arms to innocent people’ displaced and affected by the ‘conflict’ in Israel and Gaza.

At the full council meeting on Monday, councillors are set to discuss a motion on the ‘conflict in Israel and Gaza’.

The motion says: “Warrington has long been recognised as a place – a beacon – of peace.

“The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation and the Warrington Peace Centre were founded to help find peaceful alternatives to violence in conflicts following an act of terrorism in our town.

“This council: Expresses deep sympathy for all those affected by the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

"To those in the area who have been affected by this conflict we offer our support in this difficult time.

“We further believe that the tragic recent events in Israel and Gaza must not be allowed to divide our communities in Warrington, and that people of all faiths and none should feel safe in our borough.

“We condemn the increase in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic violence and abuse in the UK and believes all forms of racism have no place in our borough.”

As part of the motion, if it secures enough support and is carried, the council will resolve to ‘understand that people of all faiths and none may wish to come together and express solidarity and sadness in response to these events’, offer ‘appropriate support to any local resident who needs our assistance because of these violent events’, and ‘stand ready to provide support and open our arms to innocent people displaced and affected by these events’.

It would also resolve to ask all group leaders to write to the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to ‘raise the concerns voiced by our residents’ in relation to a number of issues, including requesting that the ‘UK joins other nations and bring children, who require urgent and lifesaving medical treatment because of the Gaza conflict, to the UK to access high-quality treatment in the NHS’ – as well as calling for an ‘urgent permanent, bilateral ceasefire in Gaza, Israel and the rest of Palestine and to make every effort to resume the peace process’, upholding international humanitarian law to ‘ensure that civilians are protected’ in accordance with those laws, and to call on the UK Government to do ‘all in its powers to support those that are committed to a permanent peace’.