(10 years, 1 month ago)
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I am pleased that my hon. Friend has raised that point. The charge has been raised against Israel that it is committing a crime by firing on families. My hon. Friend’s point is an important one; there is a difference between firing on families because they are families, and because they are being used as a shield to hide army and control centre operations. As far as I have seen, where families have been fired on, Israel has agreed to investigate it, admitting that it is not the right thing to do and quite a different thing from firing on control centres.
Order. Interventions are getting a bit long. Can we cut them down, please?
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is incredibly sad that the situation is such that civilians have been used as human shields. It is distressing that on Hamas’s Facebook page, the Ministry of the Interior and of National Security has advised Gazan citizens to ignore Israel’s warnings to get out. There are even “knock on the door” mortars fired in advance of an attack to warn Gazans of an impending strike but, sadly, Hamas is officially—