Gaza (Humanitarian Situation)

Andrew Love Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He has laid out clearly the appalling situation in Gaza and made the case that what has happened there constitutes a violation of international law, but we have not moved forward over the past five to 10 years. What does he suggest we can do to highlight the situation and put pressure on the Israelis to relent?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I will, of course, come to that.

Harriet Sherwood’s article continued:

“The price of a kilogram of tomatoes has quadrupled, along with steep hikes in the cost of essentials such as flour and sugar. Electricity is rationed, currently eight hours on followed by eight hours off. Some families are cooking indoors on open fires, at considerable risk of injury. Children are forced to study by candlelight. People set alarms for the early hours in order to be able to take a shower or charge their phones or send an email. Mealtimes are now determined by power supply rather than tradition. Gaza’s hospitals have to take into account the vagaries of the power supply when scheduling surgery; pharmacies are running low on medicines…The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is feeding more than 800,000 Gazans—almost half the population, and a record number. But UNRWA is also facing a catastrophic 20% drop in income while need is rising. ‘So much pressure has built up,’ Robert Turner, UNRWA’s director of operations, told me. ‘How far can Gaza bend before it snaps?’”

I would like to suggest a number of actions that could be taken to make life in Gaza more tolerable. First, people should be allowed to exit Gaza, otherwise it becomes simply a large open prison. It is difficult to think of anywhere else in the world where there is such restriction on the movement of people. As I understand it, Israel is still committed to a two-state solution, but Palestine is a state divided into two, and how does one keep Gaza and the West Bank together as a viable unit and potential state if Palestinian citizens are not allowed even to travel freely between them? Before the blockade, thousands of Gazans went to Israel daily to work, and it was an important source of employment.

Secondly, there is an urgent need for fuel—fuel for power plants, fuel to pump fresh water and fuel to put in cars, which are all essentials for life. I understand that Turkey and Qatar have donated fuel for Gaza but that there are difficulties in the politics, and consequently in the logistics, of delivering it from Qatar. Many would argue that the constant use of diesel for power plants in Gaza is not sustainable in the long term. In any event, continuous power cuts are causing irreparable damage to the Gazan electricity network, which is likely shortly to become inoperable. The Gazans need more electricity, a high-voltage line from Israel in the medium term and the ability to access natural gas for a Gazan power plant in the longer term.

There is an increasing concern among donors, NGOs and the international community that constantly applying sticking-plaster solutions to the humanitarian situation in Gaza does not address the root causes of its problems. The simple fact is that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is getting worse, however much money the international community puts into it. The occupation must end. Gazan business should be allowed to export to Israel, and through Israel to the west bank. It may be possible to export Gazan strawberries for a couple of months a year to the Netherlands, but sustainable exports from Gaza are entirely to Israel and the west bank. There appears to be a total ban on exports from Gaza to either Israel or the west bank, however, which is resulting in mounting unemployment and grinding poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We should thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), because this is a debate and both sides of the issue have to be put. I am sure that everyone in this Chamber is totally committed to Israelis being allowed to live in peace and security in their state. Given the appalling oppression that they have suffered historically, how could anyone disagree with that?

Everyone accepts that Hamas is an appalling organisation and that the rocket attacks are appalling. However, I want to focus on humanity. That is what this debate is about. It is not, in a sense, about high politics, the two-state solution, or why the state of Israel was founded, but about the suffering humanity and 1.7 million of our fellow human beings who are living in appalling conditions. It is not just that they are in a vast prison camp; unlike the rest of us, they do not have any right to economic self-determination or to travel—all the normal things we take for granted.

Just listen to this report:

“Daily life is a battle for the deprived residents of one of the world’s most densely populated places on earth.”

We can look just at one person cited by the report:

“The horrific scars disfigure Mona Abu Mraleel’s otherwise strikingly beautiful face. Swathes of bandages cover the injuries the 17-year-old sustained to her arms and legs in a blaze from which she narrowly escaped with her life. Still racked by pain from burns to 40 percent of her body, she goes to hospital on a daily basis to have her dressings changed. Specialist doctors are preparing to carry out a delicate skin graft... Yet the hospital on which her recovery depends is woefully ill-fitted to the task—riddled by equipment failures, power cuts and shortages in a mounting crisis that doctors fear is leading to a ‘health catastrophe’.”

That is daily life for 1.7 million of our fellow citizens. Despite the horrors of Hamas and the rocket attacks, we cannot punish the many because of the sins of a few. That is what this debate is about.

[Mr Love]

Against the backdrop of what is happening in Gaza, which has clearly and emphatically been laid out in this debate, what chances are there for the peace process?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I do not think we should have a sense of hopelessness. We should be indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) and others who try. We may have inadequate means, but we are parliamentarians, and at least we are trying to do our bit to highlight the issues.

I do not share the general pessimism about the peace process. I was in the west bank recently, visiting a hospital in Bethlehem run by a charity of which I am a part. The hospital helps many young people to have children in good conditions, and we do our best to run it properly, but how can we have a peace process when virtually every month ordinary Palestinians see a new settlement coming on the hillside? I saw for myself, travelling through the checkpoints, how people were humiliated.

Israel has a right to peace and security, but surely the people of Israel and all of us must rise up and say, “There is hope for peace. They must stop these settlements, and they should start dismantling them. They must end the blockade of Gaza for the sake of the people who live there and the fishermen.”

We have heard about the fishermen. How can anyone fish just 6 miles out in filthy water? How can anyone live in a place where 90% of the water is undrinkable? How can farmers be shot just for going within a mile of an electric fence while going about their business? As the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) asked, would that be tolerated in any other part of the world? Would our Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the UN not be stopping it?

Yes, this is only a little debate in Westminster Hall and we are only Back Benchers, but we must do our bit to articulate a sense of outrage that our fellow human beings are being treated like this, and we must spare no effort, as the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said in his most passionate speech. I share his passion. We must spare no effort in trying to persuade our Israeli friends that they are losing the battle—to put it that way—of world public opinion. They are not helping their cause.

By all means, if someone is attacked, they should reply strongly in military terms, but not punish a whole people and reduce them to utter poverty and destitution. I say this as a strong supporter of the state of Israel, but there is a real danger that more and more people in the world believe that a people who were formerly oppressed are now becoming the oppressors, and that the state of Israel is thereby losing its soul. What is its soul? It is the soul of an oppressed people who have made a great and wonderful nation. But there are other nations in this world and they must be treated fairly and must have an equal right to health, dignity and freedom.