Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Debate between John Howell and Joan Ryan

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan]

I will not give way just now.

I do not believe that trust has been built by the experience of Gaza—territory that Israel unilaterally withdrew from 12 years ago only to see it come under the control of Hamas, which is committed to the creation of a Palestinian Islamist state from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady has been talking about trust, but how would she assess the fact that when some 8,000 settlers were evacuated from Gaza, they were greeted by almost 20,000 rockets?

[Joan Ryan]

We all know that being greeted by that number of rockets will do anything but build trust. Hamas uses Gaza as a base indiscriminately to fire rockets into Israeli villages, towns and cities, which the hon. Gentleman was referring to, and build tunnels to carry out terrorist attacks.