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?

Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

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.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

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?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

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.