Israel and Gaza

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said, we are providing consular support to the affected families. We recognise that this will be a very difficult time for them. We have, for a long time, maintained Foreign Office travel advice that people should not travel to Gaza, because we know the situation is dangerous. We are working as hard as we can to open the Rafah crossing, and the Border Force team has already been deployed to Egypt so that, if and when the crossing is opened, we will rapidly be in a position to be able to bring people home.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s most powerful statement in robustly standing with Israel in its mission to defeat Hamas after their brutal terrorist offensive last week. This has rightly been called Israel’s 9/11, but we now appreciate that, following those attacks on America in 2001, grave operational and strategic errors were made, however well-intentioned, in the name of defeating terrorism. That led to significant escalation and, indeed, radicalisation.

How events play out in the next few days will have severe repercussions across the middle east and beyond for years. With no emergency governance, security or humanitarian plans yet confirmed, does the Prime Minister agree that, if we are a true friend of Israel, we should counsel against a full-scale ground invasion at this time, as it will see this conflict spill into the west bank, East Jerusalem and southern—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are still many Members standing. I want to get everyone in, as I think that is right, but I ask that Members please consider each other in both questions and answers.