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More than 1,400 Finnish music industry professionals have signed a petition urging a ban on Israel from Eurovision over alleged "war crimes" in Gaza, BBC News reports.

If Israel is not excluded from the competition, they want public broadcaster Yle to withdraw Finland's entry from the competition.

Yle says it is monitoring the position of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the organiser of the contest.

Last month, Icelandic musicians made similar demands to broadcaster Rúv.

Lukas Korpelainen, one of the petition's authors, told newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet it was not acceptable for Israel to "take part in the Eurovision Song Contest to polish its image".

Signatories include Finnish artists Olavi Uusivirta, Paleface and Axel Ehnström, who represented the country in the 2011 contest.

They accuse Yle of double standards, saying the broadcaster was among the first to demand a ban on Russia from the 2022 contest, "and we expect the same active defending of values from Yle now as well".

A day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Yle representative Ville Vilén said Moscow's attack was "contrary to all the values that Yle and other European broadcasters represent".

The EBU soon after banned Russia from participating.

Mr Vilén said the situation in Israel and Gaza was "not quite the same".

"As gruesome as it is, it is not a war of inter-state aggression like between Russia and Ukraine," he told Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat last month.

Yle's head of communications Jere Nurminen told Hufvudstadsbladet the company was following the situation and talking to the EBU and other public broadcasters.

Yle also plans to meet the petition's authors.