British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly was in southern Israel on an official visit when bombing alarms began to sound.

The politician began to run in search of shelter with the rest of the entourage that accompanied him.

At the time he was with his Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, visiting a family home in the southern town of Ofakim, which was attacked by Hamas militants.

The United Kingdom, like the United States, has shown strong support for Benjamin Netanyahu's administration in the wake of the incursion by Palestinian militants last weekend.

According to the British public broadcaster BBC, citing an “official source”, seventeen British citizens, including children, are among those “dead or missing” in the Hamas attack.