UK Jewish lawmaker: Israeli forces acting like Nazis

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Israeli military action in Gaza is comparable to that of German soldiers during the Holocaust, a Jewish UK lawmaker whose family suffered at the hands of the Nazis has claimed.

A protester confronts police in London last weekend at a demonstration against Israeli action in Gaza.

Gerald Kaufman, a member of the UK's ruling Labour Party, also called for an arms embargo on Israel, currently fighting militant Palestinian group Hamas, during the debate in the British parliament Thursday.

"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed," said Kaufman, who added that he had friends and family in Israel and had been there "more times than I can count."

"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."

Kaufman, a senior Labour politician who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, has often opposed Israeli policy throughout his career.

He also accused the Israeli government of "ruthlessly and cynically exploiting the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."

But Kaufman added that while it is necessary to talk to Hamas, which had been chosen by an electorate, it nevertheless is a "deeply nasty organization."