Ross Greer has called for the Royal Navy to sail to the coast of Gaza and take humanitarian aid to help its starving people.
The Scottish Greens MSP, who is standing in his party's leadership contest, spoke out after more than 100 organisations signed a joint letter calling on Israel to stop the "weaponisation of aid" into Gaza, as "starvation deepens".
Humanitarian groups, including Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), say they are increasingly being told they are "not authorised" to deliver aid, unless they comply with the stricter Israeli regulations.
Groups risk being banned if they "delegitimise" the state of Israel or do not provide detailed information about Palestinian staff, the letter says.
Israel denies there are restrictions on aid and says the rules, introduced in March, ensure that aid "reaches the population directly and not Hamas". The UN this month reported that 859 Palestinians had been killed near GHF sites since May, a figure the GHF denies.
Hamas's 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, with 251 seized and taken into Gaza as hostages.
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Israel's offensive has since killed nearly 62,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. It said last week that 235 people including 106 children have also died due to starvation and malnutrition.
"There is absolutely nothing stopping European nations from breaking the siege," Mr Greer told The Herald.
"If the British navy sailed to Gaza right now, there is nothing Israel could do to stop them.
"We are allowing this starvation to take place. The aid could be put onto British naval ships and sailed to Gaza which is on the coast.
"We couldn't reach the West Bank without going through the territory of another country. If you wanted to get to Gaza through the Rafah crossing you would need to get Egypt to agree if you wanted to get to the West Bank you would need Jordan to agree, but there is nothing stopping us from sailing straight to Gaza to break the siege."
According to the letter by the humanitarian groups, most major international non-governmental organisations (NGO) have been unable to deliver a single truck of lifesaving supplies since 2 March.
Aid groups' inability to deliver aid has "left hospitals without basic supplies, children, people with disabilities, and older people dying from hunger and preventable illnesses", the statement said.
Mr Greer has previously called on the Scottish Government to boycott trade ties with Israel.
Mr Greer wrote to the First Minister earlier this month demanding that he adopt the principles of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which aims to put pressure on the Israeli economy in the mould of the anti-apartheid boycott of South Africa.
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A Scottish Government spokesperson said ministers would “consider” the proposal, which would see official guidance issued to businesses urging them to end trade with Israel, as was done with Russia in 2022.
Mr Greer’s letter to John Swinney welcomed the First Minister’s acknowledgement that “there is a genocide in Palestine”, but the MSP said he disagreed with the assertion that he was “trying to do everything I possibly can do to make sure that we apply the pressure” on Israel.
Before setting out measures to implement the BDS campaign’s demands, Mr Greer said: “As we both know and have previously discussed, there is much more which the Scottish Government can be doing to put pressure on Israel to end its genocide in Palestine.”
He called for the Scottish Government to scrap part of the Local Government Act 1988 to allow councils to bar companies from winning contracts if they participated in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Mr Greer suggested this could be achieved through an amendment to the Community Wealth Building Bill.
As well as issuing guidance to businesses recommending that they halt trade with Israel, Mr Greer suggested the Scottish Government should stop funding arms firms which have supplied Israel during the war and “all other companies directly complicit in the occupation”.
Mr Greer told The Herald: "John Swinney rightly said that what Israel is doing to Palestine is genocide and I was glad he said it.
"I took issue with the fact that he said the Scottish Government is doing all that it can. That is not the case.
"The moment that Russia launched the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the Scottish Government issued an instruction to every business in Scotland telling them to stop all trade with Russia. They have never done that with Israel.
"Israel is unequivocally committing a genocide and our government has not only failed to encourage businesses to cut ties with Israel but our government itself has not cut ties.
"So what I have proposed is to take the list of companies identified by the United Nations as being directly complicit in the genocide and the illegal occupation and disqualify every one of those companies from being able to bid for public sector contracts in Scotland or being able to receive grants of public money in Scotland that we amend the local government act to allow councils to adopt their own boycott policies.
"As it stands local councils are not legally allowed to essentially set boycott policies based on geography that is a legacy of Margaret Thatcher's. She wanted to make it impossible for councils in the UK to boycott South African Apartheid so she banned it.
"It is still in law. So I am asking the Scottish Government, who have responsibility for this now, to remove it from the law because I think councils in Scotland should be able to boycott Russia and Israel as they are two countries committing the most horrendous war crimes at the moment.
A Scottish Government spokesperson previously said: “The Scottish Government has repeatedly called for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an urgent increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Scottish Government will continue to press the UK Government to recognise a sovereign Palestinian state, as part of a two-state solution to secure lasting peace in the region.
“Ministers will consider and reply to Mr Greer’s letter.”
The Ministry of Defence was approached for comment.
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