BRITISH citizens as young as 19 have been signed up to fight “shoulder to shoulder” with Israeli troops now mounting a bloody invasion of the Gaza Strip, a human rights group warned yesterday.

The death toll mounted in Tel Aviv’s latest vicious ground offensive on the besieged strip yesterday with dozens of Palestinians and at least one invading soldier reported dead.

But anger mounted at the recruiting agents luring dozens of British citizens into the ranks of the Israeli Defence Force behind the onslaught.

The IDF has confirmed the presence of over 100 British “lone soldiers” serving 18-month tours of duty in its ranks.

Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) director Muhammed Jamil yesterday demanded a government investigation into the activities of recruiting agents preying on British youngsters.

He warned that the activities of such groups had intensified over recent weeks.

To be part of the Mahal — the acronym of the Hebrew expression for “volunteers from abroad” — men need to be under the age of 24, women under 21.

Additionally, groups such as Sar-El organise unarmed volunteering programmes in IDF barracks.

Several posts on its Facebook page for British volunteers include comments such as “arriving to help just as soon as I can” under a poster for Operation Protective Edge — the official military name for the latest slaughter of Palestinians.

AOHR said that British “recruits have on occasion been required to engage in activities which endangered the lives of Palestinians such as has been the case in Gaza.”

Under British law it is not an offence for a British citizen to join a foreign state army.

But the Con-Dems’ Serious Crime Bill, announced in this year’s Queen’s Speech, would allow the prosecution of people suspected of carrying out acts made illegal by the Terrorism Act — such as training and preparing for terrorism — while abroad.

The 2000 Act’s definition of terrorism includes acts perpetrated by “any or all state or inter-governmental organisation armed forces in the context of a non-international armed conflict.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said that “the law makes different provision for people who join the official armed forces of another state.”

But he added that “if the military of any country operate outside of the law, they can of course be investigated.”

nThousands are set to turn out today for the third London protest in as many weeks to demand the end of the brutal assault on the Gaza Strip.

Protesters will descend on Downing Street at midday.

Stop the War spokesman Chris Nineham said: “The Israeli government’s decision to invade Gaza will ramp up the massacre of Palestinian civilians which they have been conducting over the last 10 days.

“This is not the act of a government looking for peace.”