Gaza: Humanitarian Aid

Question

15:38:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent discussions they have had with the government of the United States of America and European Union partners about the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

My Lords, we are in regular contact with European Union partners and the US. The Foreign Secretary most recently raised the situation in Gaza with EU High Representative Kallas on 19 May, and last spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 11 May. The new EU-UK Security and Defence Partnership will enable stronger dialogue and co-operation on a range of issues, including the Middle East.

My Lords, that is helpful. Does my noble friend agree that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is failing to meet the desperate needs of the people in Gaza, who are endangering their own lives as they seek to get water and food? Is not the only answer that Israel must be compelled to open up to the United Nations and humanitarian agencies? Will the Government seek to mobilise our friends and partners to achieve that?

My Lords, we and others predicted that the scheme that Israel decided to implement to get aid into Gaza would fail—and the manner in which it would fail. We are deeply saddened by what we are seeing and to receive the information coming out of Gaza about the failure of that scheme. The only way to get aid in at scale that we can currently see is to allow the UN and partners to deliver the aid where it is needed, at the speed and scale needed to save lives.

My Lords, first, I condemn the demonstration taking place outside Parliament as we speak. Of course, people have a legitimate right to protest, but there are reports of Members being jostled, questioned and having cameras shoved in their faces. One Member reported having water thrown over them. Intimidating Members and obstructing access to the House are unacceptable, and I hope that the authorities will take note. The Colonna report was commissioned by the UN in 2024 following the revelations that UNRWA staff members participated in the 7 October attacks. The report made 50 recommendations to UNRWA. The current Government lifted the suspension on funding for UNRWA that we had put in place, despite its involvement in those attacks. Can the Minister tell me how many of those 50 recommendations have been implemented?

My Lords, there was a problem with UNRWA. The Colonna report tells us that steps have been taken by UNRWA to deal with that. I am not standing here to have an argument with the noble Lord about UNRWA or any of the things that have happened in the past. What matters today is that we get aid into Gaza, where children are dying through lack of food—that is what is happening. If Israel, or anybody else, can find a better way to get that aid where it is needed without the guns and violence that we are seeing, and without people being killed when going to get aid, let us have a conversation about that. There is no other credible way to get that aid where it is needed at the speed needed, and that is the focus of this Government.

My Lords, surely the only way of reaching some agreement on the size of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is by allowing in the international press and television. They can report on what is actually happening there, as opposed to putting and leaving it in the hands of the public relations people. Should that not be one of the first priorities of the Government in their international discussions?

Our first priority, as I have made very clear, is to get food to the people who are starving. The noble Lord is right that that is not being helped by the inability of journalists to report accurately what is happening in Gaza. I do not know the precise reasons the Israeli Government have for not permitting journalists to do their job. I know that there are journalists who, despite the undoubtedly enormous risk to themselves, would be willing to undertake that task. It would be far preferable for us to have accurate reporting.

My Lords, the unconscionable humanitarian crisis has been compounded by the deadly weaponisation of aid delivery. Does the Minister agree with me that the UK should argue that the use of mercenaries in the distribution of aid should be halted immediately and that there should be designated humanitarian corridors involving Palestinian Authority civilian police, which the UK has trained? They need to be put in place this week, literally to save lives.

My Lords, there are trucks of aid and professionals with the ability to get that aid where it needs to go, without the use of violence and at speed. Whether or not that is done through corridors, as the noble Lord suggested, I would leave to the judgment of those people on the ground, whom I have met; they are able to do that task and to do it very quickly. He is absolutely right that what is happening now is unconscionable and is failing. It is leading to a huge amount of distress and will lead, unless something is done quickly, to further death. All we can do is make our position clear, publicly and privately, to the Israeli Government. They have made a choice about this: this is not a natural disaster; this is a decision being made to prevent the adequate distribution of aid. We disagree with it, and we believe that the position should change.

My Lords, I draw attention to my declaration in the register of interests. I have recently returned from a visit to Israel last week that was organised and paid for by Conservative Friends of Israel, where we were able to look at the impact of the events of 7 October, which is, of course, the context in which all this is taking place, and have a briefing about aid. The Israeli Government have wanted to move to a new model because under the previous model Hamas intercepted significant quantities of aid, used that aid to control the Gazan population and to sell it to raise money for weapons? Can she set out what the British Government are able to do, given their experience in humanitarian relief, to assist the Israeli Government in ensuring that aid gets to the people of Gaza but without funding Hamas terrorist atrocities?

What happened to Israel on 7 October was a devastating attack of terrorism. Israel has every right to defend itself, and we have said this consistently. Israel is a friend and an ally. We have close links with the people of Israel and they should grow in the coming months and years. But what is happening now is wrong. The withdrawal and blockade of aid, and the inability of people to get that aid where it is needed straightaway, because of a choice being made by a Government, is wrong. The noble Lord is right to remind us about what happened on 7 October, and we are all right to hold in our hearts and minds the plight of those hostages still being held. But that does not make it right to withhold food from hungry children.

My Lords, I too declare an interest, having just returned from Israel/Palestine last week. As we talk about humanitarian aid, does the Minister agree that the horrors we are now seeing in Gaza cannot and should not be separated from the tensions and conflicts in the West Bank, and that what we are seeing across the whole of the Occupied Palestinian Territories of Gaza, east Jerusalem and the West Bank are all part of one and the same thing —a diminishing of human dignity and equality, a dispossession of land and identity, and a violation by the Israeli Government of the right of Palestinian people to self-determination?

I was in Ramallah in the West Bank myself a couple of weeks ago and I spoke to families who have been forced to move. It is right that we are reminded that we cannot just separate what is happening in Gaza and in the West Bank. It is the same Government undertaking all of this. What struck me, from the conversations I had, was the level of fear that there is in all communities in Israel and the West Bank. It is important that, inasmuch as we can, the UK uses its ability to influence, to try to work alongside the US, Egypt and Qatar to try to get some kind of negotiated settlement here so that there can be a ceasefire, the hostages can be released and we can get the aid where it is needed.

My Lords, as usual, these exchanges are, rightly, reasonably calm and measured but they do not get close to the horrors that we see on our television screens, on news bulletins, night after night, with one horror overtaking another—the latest, of course, seeing starving people herded into the south of Israel and food supplies being used as a weapon of war. One report last week encapsulated it all: a mother, a doctor at a hospital in the south of Gaza, losing nine of her 10 children in an air strike. They were aged from six months to 10 years. I do not know what the right language is to describe this, whether it is carpet bombing, genocide or whatever, but I do know that it is evil—and I would love to hear my noble friend and my Government describe it in precisely those terms.

If I am learning one thing about this job, it is that you can use whatever words and make whatever statements you like, and it has some effect—it is galvanising and it is important that the people of our country know where their Government stand and that we work with our partners and allies internationally to make clear the position of the United Kingdom—but what happens next lies squarely in the hands of quite a small group of people in the Israeli Government. I would have hoped that the statements that have been made and the information we now have coming out of Gaza would have led to a change in position, because the scheme they have come up with is clearly failing. It is going to lead to more death, starvation and desperation in that community and, ultimately, more violence. We need to get everybody we can around a table so that the dialogue can begin again and we can get the cease- fire that we so desperately want to see.