Gaza: Healthcare System Support

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the fragile agreed ceasefire, although it was too late for those hostages who could have been saved and the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and starved. Multiple generations of families have been wiped out. The death and destruction cannot carry on. What role is the UK playing to ensure the ceasefire is permanent?

The surviving Palestinians now face a critical threat. The healthcare system in Gaza has been decimated, leaving Palestinians without access to life-saving treatment, which could result in a doubling of deaths. The injured cannot be treated. There is the spread of disease. Newborns are dying. Pregnant women are having miscarriages and being denied safe birth. One overlooked tool of genocide is preventing births, which we are witnessing.

Hospital buildings have been destroyed and patients and healthcare staff killed, and medical staff have been imprisoned. All of this is in breach of international law. Why has Israel been allowed to violate international law repeatedly and with impunity, through actions which have undeniably contributed to the elimination and expulsion of Palestinians? Will the UK join efforts to hold Israel accountable for its repeated violations of international law and for the collective punishment of Palestinians?

I finish by commenting on the Prime Minister’s statement about the ceasefire. Language matters. He rightly described the deaths of innocent Israelis as brutal and “a massacre”, but then simply described the deaths of Palestinians by saying that “they lost their lives”. Palestinians, too, were brutally massacred. Given the atrocities we have witnessed, why did the Prime Minister downplay the suffering of Palestinians and show double standards in humanity?