The American and British ambassadors to Japan have announced they will skip an upcoming ceremony commemorating the victims of the US’s 1945 atomic bombing because the city’s mayor did not invite the Israeli ambassador.

The Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have also been excluded from the event this Friday by Japanese authorities.

Julia Longbottom, the UK’s ambassador to Japan, told local reporters that Israel is exercising self-defence in Gaza and should not be treated in the same way as Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.