Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Lord Cameron said he would not support a full-scale offensive on Rafah until he saw Israel's "plan to protect people".

But he argued the US, which he called "a massive state supplier of weaponry", is in "a totally different position" to the UK.

The UK government does not directly sell arms to Israel but grants licenses to weapons companies based on legal advice. In contrast, the US uses a less restrictive government-to-government deals to sell arms.

Lord Cameron said the last time he was urged to end weapons sales to Israel, when three Britons were killed in an air strike on aid workers in Gaza, "a few days later there was a brutal attack by Iran on Israel".

"Just to simply announce today that we will change our approach on arms exports, it would make Hamas stronger and it would make a hostage deal less likely," he adds.

He said he wanted instead to focus on "hammering away every day" on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.

On Friday, the US State Department released an investigation which found Israel may have used American-supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law during the war in Gaza.

Pressed on whether he agreed with the findings, Lord Cameron said Israel's "performance is not good enough", arguing "Israel has not had a clean bill of health" on allowing humanitarian aid into the country.

But the UK "has a different approach" and Lord Cameron said he was "not really interested in message sending" through political moves like ending weapons sales.

Lord Cameron said: "I'm interested in what can we do to maximise the British pressure and the outcome that will help people in their lives - including getting the hostages, including British nationals, released."

He dismissed the idea of British boots on the ground in Gaza, saying it was "a risk that we should not take".

It comes after the BBC last month reported the government was considering sending British troops into Gaza to help deliver aid via a new sea route.