Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend speaks with great experience. Yes, we need aid to get into the region, and we need to protect aid workers, because that is the only way in which the aid can get to where it is needed.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Today we mark that terrible anniversary of the biggest slaughter of Jews since the second world war. We must also note that since that day, more than 60,000 Israelis have been displaced in northern Israel by the actions of Hezbollah. The Israeli Government have had no choice but to mobilise the Israel Defence Forces, and any Israeli citizen can have to be involved in that.

I am proud of the fact that yesterday Leeds held a multi-faith remembrance service in Millennium Square, attended by more than 1,000 people. Does the Prime Minister agree that that is in marked contrast to the individual who drove the Jewish chaplain of Leeds into hiding because, as an Israeli citizen, he had to serve as a member of the IDF? Is that not an act of pure hatred and antisemitism?

[The Prime Minister]

We must hunt down that hatred wherever we see it, and the right hon. Gentleman is right to raise it and to call it out. We must focus on the multi-faith work to which he referred: I think that, across the House, we want to see more of it. He is also right about the displacement in northern Israel. Many families simply want to return to their homes, on both sides of the border, and we must never forget the impact that it has on them.