Gaza

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, it is now a year since the horrific war in Gaza in which over 2,000 Palestinians were killed, of whom 65% were civilians and over 500 were children, and 73 Israelis were killed, of whom six were civilians. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, has said, much of the infrastructure in Gaza was destroyed—schools, hospitals, power and water plants, roads, residential accommodation—displacing 100,000 people, very few of whom have been rehoused. Along with the blockade of Gaza, this wanton destruction has crippled the Gazan economy, leaving it with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world, at 43%, and a poverty rate of 39%, according to the World Bank. By the end of 2014, youth unemployment had soared to 60%.

As the noble Lord, Lord Gold, has just said, movement restrictions and the blockade, as well as the armed conflict, have led to Gaza’s economic performance being at rock bottom—worse in only three other countries in the world. It is estimated that 80% of the population are dependent for their survival on overseas aid. Following last year’s war, reconstruction has begun. However, the pace is terribly slow, because of the restrictions on the import of building materials due to the blockade. Lengthy power cuts continue and manufacturing has almost disappeared. After Israel’s imposition of the blockade in 2007, Gaza’s GDP was reduced by one-third, as the right reverend Prelate also mentioned.

I am afraid that I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gold, that this blockade is justified because of Israeli security problems. In fact, in the long term, the blockade will threaten Israel’s security. My first question to the Minister is about what steps the Government are taking to get the blockade lifted. Further efforts are surely needed following the request that the Foreign Secretary made to Egypt last month to open the Rafah crossing. Should there not be another concerted effort by the UK and the international community to put pressure on Israel to lift the blockade, which would allow the £3.5 billion pledged for reconstruction to be spent? Pledges are simply not enough; action is what is needed. Unless economic growth can be re-established and jobs created for young people, Gaza will surely become a breeding ground for much more dangerous extremism.

Last year’s war did not just result in many civilian deaths; it also left over 11,000 Palestinians injured, including 3,500 children, some of whom suffered permanent physical disability. As has already been mentioned, many more children have been traumatised, fearing to go to school, bedwetting, clinging to parents and with high levels of aggression. This is all well documented in a recent report by the Save the Children Fund. The damage done to so many children and young people does not augur well for the future of Gaza and its political system. There is a danger that some of them will grow up alienated, disturbed and easy prey for militant extremism, which the high rate of unemployment is likely to exacerbate. More aid is needed to provide psychological help to these children, as well as better conditions to give them some hope for the future.

There is already evidence that Salafist militants now claim allegiance to ISIL and are becoming very active in Gaza. They recently fired rockets into Israel with the aim of jeopardising the ceasefire. Were their numbers to grow greatly, Hamas’s crackdown on them might be very hard to sustain, resulting in potentially terrible consequences, not just for Gaza but for Israel.

My second question to the Minister is: what steps does the UK intend to take to implement the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Council’s report? The Independent Commission of Inquiry received full co-operation from the Palestinians, but, deplorably, not from the Israeli Government, who refused to respond to its questions. Nevertheless, the report was impeccably even-handed, finding fault on both sides. It criticised Palestinian armed groups for indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel and the failure of the Palestinian authorities to bring those involved in violating international law to justice. It considered that many of the actions of the Israel Defense Force may have amounted to war crimes or violation of customary international humanitarian law. One of the issues that concerned it was Israel’s,

“lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable, not only … to secure justice for victims but also to ensure the necessary guarantees for non-repetition”.

In the debate on the report, the UK Government voted in Geneva last week to support the UN’s accountability resolution. Will they now work at the UN in New York and in the European Union to set up investigations into possible war crimes in the interests of abolishing impunity? Surely we owe it to the victims of these atrocities to challenge the impunity that, up to now, has prevailed across the board? If we fail to do so, we must fear for the prospects of peace in Gaza and for a stable and secure political situation ever being established there.