Conservative MP Crispin Blunt is facing calls to have the whip removed after he suggested that terrorist group Hamas had a right to hit “legitimate targets” in Israel during a parliamentary debate last week.

Mr Blunt drew stinging criticism from party colleagues for his comments during a Commons debate ahead of a vote on banning the political wing of Hamas.

Politicians on all sides of the House backed a full ban on Hamas but Mr Blunt seemed to suggest the terror group had a right to attack Israel, provided that it hit “legitimate targets”.

The former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said he was concerned about proscription because “people have a right to resist and we must understand that we are talking about an occupied people”.

He added: “We have already taken a position on what is plainly the stupid, illegitimate and immoral mortaring of people where you cannot tell where the targets are, simply flying weapons over the wall, because you do not have the capacity to engage in that targeting of what would be legitimate targets under international law.”

Former Conservative chief whip Mark Harper urged Mr Blunt to clarify his remarks:

“When he was talking about the indiscriminate attacks that Hamas sends into Israel, he seemed to say that the only problem with them was that they were nor more accurately targeted to kill certain Israelis, that they indiscriminately killed other Israelis and that, if they targeted their weapons more accurately, that would be sort of OK. Did I hear him correctly? I fear that I may have misunderstood him but can he put me right? If that is so, I find that an offensive and extraordinary thing to say.”

Mr Blunt responded: “Under international law, you have a legal right to resist. Not only is the use of those weapons unlawful because they are integrated and indiscriminate; it is also fantastically stupid because it gives the Israelis’ argument about the threat they face from the Palestinian people its raison d’être. I deplore violence of any kind from the Palestinians because they are going to get smashed if they try to resist under international law.”

He added: “Do I support Hamas? That is a little unlikely, speaking as the gay chair of the all-party parliamentary humanist group.

“But have I taken the trouble to try to understand political Islam? Yes, I have.”

He added that move to ban the political wing of Hamas “will have a terrible, chilling effect on putting anything into Gaza, because Gaza is administered by the organisation that we are about to proscribe.”

Campaigners against antisemitism StandWithUs condemned Mr Blunt’s remarks, saying he had chosen to “defend bloodthirsty Hamas jihadi terrorists who blow up buses and cafes with suicide bombs, murdering and maiming countless innocents, including Brits”.

Tal Ofer, a former member of the Board of Deputies, said: “Boris Johnson should remove the Tory whip from Crispin Blunt.”

The campaign group Never Again branded Mr Blunt “rancid” while Stephane Savary, vice chairman of Jewish Labour, described the speech as “disgraceful” and urged the Prime Minister to “remove the whip now”.

The outright ban on supporting Hamas in the UK came into force last Friday. Anyone found guilty of supporting or belonging to the terror group could now face fines of up to 14 years in prison.