Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friends the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for their personal hard work in ensuring that they are doing everything they can to get aid into Gaza. But we still have a population being starved, a people on the brink of famine, pregnant women undergoing C-sections without anaesthetic, newborns with starving mothers and babies orphaned at birth, with no access to baby formula. There are no period products, basic medication or clean drinking water. Despite miles and miles of aid trucks on the Israeli border, can my noble friend say on the record what barriers are being created by the Netanyahu Government to getting aid in? Why are more than 50% of trucks cleared and allowed into the north of Gaza still being stopped by the Israeli army inside Gaza? Why is the northern Gaza water pipeline—the only source of clean water for the most desperate civilians—still switched off by Israel, in direct breach of the ICJ ruling, in breach of a Security Council resolution on the use of hunger as a weapon of war, and in breach of international humanitarian law?