Northern Gaza

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Tuesday 7 January.

“The situation in northern Gaza is dire. The UK condemns Israel’s restrictions on aid in the strongest terms. The scale of human suffering is unimaginable. We have been clear that this is a manmade crisis and Israel must act immediately to address it.

The need for humanitarian assistance to reach Gaza is greater than ever before. Close to 46,000 people have now been killed. All of Gaza’s population is reported to face the risk of famine. Air strikes within the designated humanitarian zone show that there are no safe spaces left for civilians. Reports of up to eight children having died from the cold weather conditions are unconscionable.

It is unacceptable that many medical facilities are no longer in use or are inaccessible to humanitarian actors, and we remain deeply concerned by reports of medics being killed or injured. I have raised this, and will continue to raise this, with both the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister and Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. I have also specifically raised the detention of Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya with both the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister and Israel’s ambassador to the UK. We urge Israel to urgently clarify the reasons for his detention, as well as for the detention of paediatrician Mohammed Hamouda and all the other health workers detained in Gaza.

The UK is doing all we can to alleviate this suffering. We have provided £112 million for the Occupied Palestinian Territories this financial year, including £41 million for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, providing vital services to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, and to Palestinians across the region, delivered through partner agencies.

The UK is also supporting the provision of essential healthcare to civilians in Gaza, including support to UK-Med for operating its field hospitals, and we have provided £1 million to the Egyptian ministry of health to support Palestinians medically evacuated from Gaza.

The Foreign Secretary, working with his French and German counterparts, wrote to the Government of Israel in November to press them to ensure adequate preparations for winter. Make no mistake: in lockstep with our partners, we are continuing to exert pressure to make sure that northern Gaza is not cut off from the south, that Gazans are not forcibly transferred from or within Gaza, and that there is no reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip.

We need a ceasefire, we need hostages to be released, we need much more aid into Gaza, and we need civilians to be protected”.

16:40:00

My Lords, we all want to see this terrible conflict in Gaza come to a sustainable end as quickly as possible, with the emphasis, of course, on “sustainable”. I am sure we are all watching the current developments in Cairo extremely carefully. The key to a sustainable end to the conflict in Gaza remains the release of the hostages. Can the Minister update us with any further information the Government have on the status of the hostages, particularly the British national hostage, Emily Damari? We also want to see more aid reach Gaza because we all know that innocent civilians in Gaza are suffering and desperate. Sadly, they continue to be used as human shields by Hamas, which seems to have no regard at all for their safety and welfare. Does the Minister agree that Hamas has the power to end this conflict immediately by releasing those hostages? Does he agree that there is no moral equivalence between Israel’s defensive war and Hamas’s terrorist atrocities?

I think the noble Lord knows the answers to those questions because he has heard me speak repeatedly of the need for the immediate release of the hostages. Both sides need to show flexibility and do a deal now. We reiterate our call for the safe release of all hostages, including the British national, Emily Damari, and three hostages with strong UK links. Ensuring their release is a top priority for this Government. I also emphasise that we are facing a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that our response has been to focus on that too and make it clear that some of the actions that the Israeli Government have taken need to cease, so we need flexibility on both sides. We have announced £112 million for the OPTs this financial year, including £41 million for UNRWA, which provides vital, life-saving services to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank and to Palestinians across the region. As the noble Lord said, what we need is an immediate ceasefire and proper access for humanitarian aid.

My Lords, it is an outrage that the innocent hostages are still being detained. Yesterday, Minister Falconer said in the House of Commons of the Israeli military: “Air strikes within the designated humanitarian zone show there are no safe spaces left for civilians”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/1/25; col. 733.] The most pressing threat is to the 50,000 pregnant women and the 17,000 unaccompanied children. There is now hunger and no health facilities at all. Not only that, in December, we saw the lowest levels of aid getting into Gaza, and the Israeli Government, as an occupying power, was blocking its distribution within Gaza, contrary to international law, and contributing to the looting and criminal activities by gangs and Hamas. Notwithstanding the Minister’s concern and the number of times that Ministers have expressed their frustration with the Israeli Government, what consequences will there be for the relationship between the Israeli Government and His Majesty’s Government? There now need to be consequences; otherwise, nothing that Ministers say about their concerns will have any influence on the Israeli Government.

I think the noble Lord knows that when this Government were elected, we took specific action. We have not been complacent here. On the mounting civilian deaths, we are absolutely determined to ensure that Israel does much more to comply with international humanitarian law and provide protection for civilians. The Foreign Secretary continues to raise issues of international humanitarian law compliance in Gaza with the Israeli Government and since 2 September there have been no extant UK export licences for items to Israel that we assess are for use in military operations in Gaza. We have also restored funding to UNRWA to ensure that humanitarian aid can get in. I repeat to the noble Lord that we have not been complacent. We have acted and continue to act and put pressure on the Israeli Government and work with all our allies, as we have shown in our votes at the United Nations and the Security Council. I refute the suggestion that we have not taken action.

My Lords, I recently met Dr Omar Alshaqaqi, who works in the cancer centre in Belfast City Hospital. He and his wife Dalal have seen 80 members of their two families killed in Gaza. On 4 December, Dalal was able to speak to her mother and sister in the camp that they had moved to on the instructions of the Israelis. As they concluded their conversation so that Dalal could go and collect her children from school in Belfast, she heard a bomb explode. When she returned with her children she learned that her mother and 34 year-old brother had been killed, and her three sisters and two of her three brothers had been seriously injured. All the hospitals have been destroyed. There is no anaesthetic and no medication to treat their terrible injuries. We all accept that Hamas must return the hostages but what more can be done after the destruction of all the hospitals to allow such injured people to get out of Gaza to a safe country?

I thank the noble Baroness for her contribution and her question. The situation in northern Gaza is absolutely dire and reports from Kamal Adwan Hospital have continued to shock and distress the international community. The United Kingdom has repeatedly raised concerns about the impact of this conflict on Gaza’s healthcare system and medical staff, including reiterating the requirement for all parties to comply with international humanitarian law. We are looking at all ways that we can ensure that proper health facilities are made available to those who need them and I hope, in the near future, we will be able to make certain announcements about that.

My Lords, three days before Hamas’s horrendous attacks on Israel I was in Gaza visiting the Anglican Al-Ahli Hospital. That hospital was struck again on 29 December by an Israeli artillery shell—the fifth strike it has had. Earlier this afternoon, I asked the archbishop in Jerusalem for an update and he provided me with a list of things that are urgently needed by his medical director at that hospital. They include antibiotics, anaesthesia drugs, sterile gloves, plaster of Paris, surgical knives, abdominal swabs and much more. All of that is in a container that has been in Amman for two months, held up because the Israeli Government will not allow it in. What might His Majesty’s Government do to try to enable that medical equipment to get to the Al-Ahli Hospital urgently?

Both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have raised the issue of access to humanitarian aid and medical supplies with the Israeli Government. We are also giving support to UNRWA to try to get those supplies through. I think the right reverend Prelate makes an extremely valid point. It is unacceptable that such supplies should not be able to get through to those who need them. We are certainly making the strongest possible representations to ensure that they do get through.

My Lords—

My Lords—

This side.

My Lords, I do not underestimate the difficulty of what I am going to ask my noble friend but on Monday I asked whether His Majesty’s Government could possibly consider the urgent temporary medical evacuation of children facing death, very serious illness and terrible injuries because clearly there are no medical facilities in northern Gaza which can deal with the situation they are facing. I repeat: is it possible for His Majesty’s Government to consider urgent temporary medical evacuation?

I tried to answer that question earlier, because there was a specific point raised. We are looking at all possible ways to ensure that there is access to medical assistance. I am not in a position to make any announcements today, but we are working with allies to see how this can be facilitated urgently.