Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Private Notice Question

15:21:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government (1) what representations they are making to the Government of Israel and (2) what steps they plan to take to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, following reports of infant deaths due to hypothermia and starvation.

I thank the noble Baroness for her Question. The suffering that we are seeing in Gaza is intolerable. The UK is committed to alleviating this. We announced £112 million for the Occupied Palestinian Territories this financial year, while also supporting Palestinians in the wider region. Our support has provided 52,900 shelter items, 76,000 wound care kits, 1.3 million items of medicine and 500 warm children’s clothing kits. The UK continues to press the Government of Israel to better protect civilians in Gaza. In November the Foreign Secretary wrote, with his French and German counterparts, to urge Israel to ensure sufficient winter preparations and supplies.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. A year ago, on 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice issued the first set of provisional orders in the case of the application of the genocide convention in the Gaza Strip. Less than a year later, nowhere are civilians in Gaza safe. Everything and everybody is a target. Schools, hospitals, civilian infrastructure, aid workers, journalists, medics and civilians are all reduced to rubble and corpses. North Gaza has been under a near-total siege for more than two months and south Gaza is under constant bombardment. Today, an eighth baby froze to death. According to Tom Fletcher, the head of OCHA, the Israeli authorities have denied over 100 requests to access north Gaza since 6 October. With the fear of polio spreading to the region, the UN was able to respond and vaccinate 600,000 children twice. Now we see babies dying of cold when blankets and shelter, and all the aid that we have paid for, have been sat waiting to enter Gaza for six months. Removing UNRWA, the largest aid organisation on the ground, is another step in the wrong direction. The only way anything can change is with political will. Given that nothing the UK has done so far has shifted the dynamic on the ground and prevented this catastrophic loss of life, what will now change? What will HMG do to defend international humanitarian law, maintain UNRWA’s vital work and secure the basic protection of civilians in Gaza, including humanitarian access and the release of hostages?

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. We were quick to reinstate aid to UNRWA. She is quite correct to point out that October and November 2024 were the worst months since 2023 for access to Gaza. The success—if I can put it that way—of the polio vaccination programme shows that access can be achieved. When it can be facilitated, it can be used to good effect and can save lives. We urge the Israeli Government to allow the international community, we think through UNRWA—if there is another viable way of doing this, we would be interested, but our assessment is that there is no viable alternative to UNRWA at this time—to have that access, so that the protection from the weather, the food and the medicine that are so urgently needed can be provided.

My Lords, have the Government made an assessment of how much of the large quantities of aid entering Gaza is being stolen by Hamas, either for its own purposes or for sale on the black market at grossly inflated prices, to the enormous detriment of the people of Gaza?

My Lords, the situation here is desperate and urgent. Although I have no doubt that the things the noble Lord describes, highlights and brings to this Chamber’s attention do happen, I point out that we are in a situation where there is a humanitarian catastrophe, where 90% of the population has been displaced—sometimes multiple times—and where half the identified bodies are women and children. So our priority at this time is for de-escalation of the conflict, yes, but also to meet the urgent humanitarian need.

Can my noble friend confirm that, since this conflict began, many reports have told us that schools have been attacked by the Israelis, involving the killing of children; that hospitals have been attacked, involving the killing of children; that areas designated as being safe by the Israelis have been attacked, resulting in the killing of children; and that, overall, at least 11,000 children have been killed, including 710 babies under the age of 12 months? If any of these allegations are true, do they not clearly constitute a gross violation of international humanitarian law?

We are very clear—noble Lords have heard me and others say this repeatedly—that Israel has a clear right to defend itself. There is no moral equivalence with the horrific attack that Israel was subject to. But the defence that it has every right to undertake must be conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law.

My Lords, can the Minister please tell her counterparts in the Israeli foreign office that many of us who have been long supporters of Israel find it very difficult now to reconcile the deaths of 45,000 people, many of whom are wholly unconnected with terrorism, either with the requirements of self-defence or with the principles of a just war?

We take our advocacy role seriously, and we are glad to undertake it. We do make the points about humanitarian law, the protection of civilians and the access that we need to provide humanitarian aid. We make those cases privately, yes—but we are now in a situation where we make them publicly too.

My Lords, I hope the House will allow me to say that I miss my noble friend Lady Randerson terribly. Not to strive to protect children in conflict is a war crime. Forcibly moving civilians to areas where there is no shelter, medicine, food or sanitation is a war crime. Militaries actively depopulating civilian areas permanently after conflict is a war crime. These continue to be advocated by members of the Israeli Government, two members of which these Benches have called for the UK to sanction. Why have our Government not indicated to the Israeli Government that there are consequences for breaching international humanitarian law and the institution of war crimes? Our relationship with the Israeli Government cannot carry on as it is.

In pointing out that those acts are war crimes, the noble Lord is absolutely right. What I do not think is right is for me, at this Dispatch Box, to proclaim who is or is not guilty of a war crime. We make the case to the Israeli Government in the strongest possible terms, privately and publicly, about the necessity of adhering to international humanitarian law.

My Lords, eight members of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee recently wrote to the Defence Minister demanding that he order Israeli forces in Gaza to destroy all energy, water and food sources. Are the Government aware of this, and what are they doing specifically to challenge these genocidal attitudes?

I am not sure what a genocidal attitude is, but I will into what the noble Baroness has highlighted. I was not aware of that letter, but I will look into it for her.

My Lords, as the Minister knows, the previous Government worked directly with the neighbouring states—Egypt, Jordan and indeed Lebanon—which are key partners, ensuring that land routes were open. We were also there in the mix on the ground. What physical meetings have taken place with Israel, Jordan and Lebanon to ensure that these land access points are open? As I have said repeatedly in the House, we also explored air routes and maritime routes. I accept that they are not as effective as land routes, but we have seen a void. This is not happening; we need to act now.

I am the first to commend the noble Lord on the work that he did in office. My right honourable friend Anneliese Dodds was in the region in December having just those conversations. The noble Lord is right: anybody who can do anything, no matter how seemingly small, needs to lend their shoulder to the wheel to support people, to get the medical aid in and to address the humanitarian disaster that we see unfolding in Gaza.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, for many of us, this institutionalised cruelty is contrary to all the laws of war? It does not seem to many of us that Britain is making enough of this. We owe it to those children and others in the freezing cold to make much more of this disgraceful behaviour.

We are providing £112 million to the Occupied Territories, and £41 million specifically for UNRWA, because we understand that it is desperate. We want the conflict to stop, we want the violence to stop and we want children to be safe. We are unable to achieve that immediately, but what we ought to be able to achieve very quickly is to get that aid in. At the moment that depends on facilitation by the Israeli Government. That has not been happening, and that is what we are calling for.

My Lords, the humanitarian cost of the horrors of war is especially brutal in winter—though shocking in any circumstances. I am nervous when the main culprit named so far in this debate is Israel, as though nobody else is involved. To go back to the Question, aid that gets through is not being distributed. Israel is not to blame for that; it is because Hamas and the forces there are not allowing it to get to those who need it. I just cannot let this Question go without reminding noble Lords of the hostages, particularly Emily Damari, who is a British citizen. This war did not come out of nowhere. Israel did not start it and is not to blame for its horrific consequences.

Where I agree with the noble Baroness is that the hostages ought to be released, and released immediately. They ought to be at home with their families, and she is right to raise that. I do not agree with the suggestion that it is a futile act to get aid in to support those children. It has been proven through the vaccine programme that, where there is the will to do this, it can be done at speed and at scale. Our view is that UNRWA is best placed to deliver that, which is why we are calling for UNRWA immediately to be able to access Gaza in the way that it needs in order to get those supplies in quickly.

There have been many calls from these Benches and other places for the Government to consider urgent temporary medical evacuation, in particular for children who are desperately ill, facing death and terribly injured. Does my noble friend have any comments on that?

This is a really important question. The situation as it stands at the moment, as my noble friend will know, is that it is best for people who need medical treatment to be treated as close to where they are as possible. Clearly, this situation is desperate and exceptional, and the Government will look compassionately at what is happening. Where we can assist, we will.

I hear what the Minister says on this, but can she reflect on whether it is the most effective way in which to help the Palestinian people for this House, this Government and the UN community to repeatedly castigate Israel while apparently minimising the fact that these aid convoys are being routinely violently looted by Hamas to stop the aid getting to the people who desperately need it?

I take the noble Lord’s question as a suggestion of his concern that the aid gets to where it is needed. That is the spirit in which I take his question, and I thank him for that. All I can do is repeat the point that the very difficult task of getting children vaccinated multiple times in a short period was delivered successfully and saved thousands of children’s lives. My challenge is to say to anybody who is able to facilitate the aid getting in that they have a responsibility to make sure that happens. We can provide the aid and the money, and we have done, but getting it to the people who desperately need it needs the help of the Israeli Government.