Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has told the United Nations Human Rights Council that its focus on Israel is “disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace”.

Mr Johnson criticised the council’s Agenda Item 7, a permanent fixture on the schedule that is devoted to discussing rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He told the opening of the 38th Council session: “We share the view that the dedicated Agenda Item 7 focused solely on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace, and unless things change we shall vote next year against all resolutions introduced under Item 7.”

The Board of Deputies welcomed Mr Johnson's "bold, clear and important intervention", saying it was "an important victory for human rights".

Sheila Gewolb, a board senior vice president, said: "The infamous Item 7 singles out Israel as the only country in the world to have its own agenda item...

"Human rights are universal and should be applied universally and not in such a nakedly biased way.

"The UN human rights council is undermined by politicisation and the singling out of Israel in its standing agenda and the UK has shown the way to giving this potentially crucial body much greater weight and standing.”

The Jewish Leadership Council also praised Mr Johnson’s statement, adding the council “consistently ignores the worst human rights abuses in the world.”

But the Foreign Secretary said that the UN body’s work on the Israel-Palestine conflict could have value in the right circumstances.

He added that his criticism “did not mean that we in the UK are blind to the value of this council”.

America and Australia have sided with Israel in condemning Item 7, saying that countries with worse rights records in recent years are spared such intense scrutiny.

Donald Trump’s administration has raised the prospect of America withdrawing from the council unless it is scrapped.

Diplomats said American withdrawal from the 47-member council could come as early as Tuesday.

During her visit to Geneva a year ago, America's UN ambassador Nikki Haley branded the council a “forum for politics, hypocrisy and evasion”.

She accused member countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, China, Burundi and Saudi Arabia of failing to “uphold the highest standards” of human rights, while emphasising what she said was the council’s anti-Israel bias.