Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has made an estimate of the number of tonnes of (a) aid and (b) UK-funded aid entering Gaza each (i) day and (ii) month in the 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK has delivered 161 tonnes of life saving aid and equipment to Egypt for the Gaza response. This comprised 74 tonnes on board four RAF flights in October and November and 87 tonnes - inclusive of five tonnes of Cypriot aid - on board RFA Lyme Bay in January. In late January the UK and Qatar delivered a joint consignment of 17 tonnes of family sized tents, and in February the UK and Jordan delivered 4 tonnes of aid by air to Tal Al-Hawa Hospital in northern Gaza.
Additionally, the UK is funding a number of trusted partners through their large-scale appeals to procure and deliver aid to Gaza. This includes supporting the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery in December and a second delivery of 315 tonnes was made in January. It must be recognised that the support to large scale appeals prevents us from directly attributing UK funding to specific items, and it remains challenging to track aid deliveries by weight by international partners and aid organisations. Updates on the number of aid trucks entering Gaza are published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) as part of their daily updates on "Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel - reported impact", available on their website https://www.ochaopt.org/crisis
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has made recent representations to his Spanish counterparts on proposals for a waste facility at the site of a mass grave close to Fuencarral Cemetery in Madrid.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
The FCDO are aware of this proposal and consider it to be a matter for the competent local Spanish authorities, who we understand have paused the project to investigate the land in question. We will continue to monitor developments.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Oral Statement of the Minister of State of 29 January 2024, on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Official Report, columns 620-622, if he will publish the dates when (a) his Department and (b) other Government departments had scheduled payments to be made to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) before the announcement of a temporary pause in funding on 27 January 2024.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Payments have been as per our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). We are not aware of other UK Government Departments having any scheduled payments for UNRWA.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Oral Statement of the Minister of State of 29 January 2024, on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Official Report, columns 620-622, if he will publish the dates when (a) his Department and (b) other Government departments released funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
We have made disbursements to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) every year in the past ten. This includes core contributions through the multilateral budget and bilateral payments. We are not aware of other UK Government departments having made payments to UNRWA. Obtaining the detail for the requested timeframe could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Oral Statement of the Minister of State of 29 January 2024, on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Official Report, columns 620-622, and with reference to the Government's pause in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), announced on 27 January 2024, what assessment he has made of the capacity of (a) other UN agencies, (b) international NGOs and (c) UK NGOs to deliver aid previously delivered by UNRWA.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza. We will continue to support and have supported the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery and 315 tonnes in the second delivery. We have and will continue to support the Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS). The ERCS has a long standing and trusted role as auxiliary to the Egyptian authorities in the humanitarian field. Egyptian Red Crescent is part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with whom FCDO has due diligence in place.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Oral Statement of the Minister of State of 29 January 2024, on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Official Report, columns 620-622, what his planned timetable is for the completion of his Department's review of the Office of Internal Oversight Services' investigation into the employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
As we have said, we are pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review the concerning allegations. Any future funding decisions will be taken after this point. We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it, including through other UN agencies.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Oral Statement of the Minister of State of 29 January 2024, on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Official Report, columns 620-622, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the temporary pause in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), announced on 27January 2024, on humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
The UK is appalled by allegations that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned. The UK is pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations.
However, we remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stand. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if his Department will make an assessment of whether parties to the Israel-Hamas conflict have committed (a) war crimes and (b) other breaches of international law.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK is a strong supporter of international justice and the independence of the International Criminal Court (ICC). As an independent organisation, it is for the ICC Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan to decide upon the focus of his investigations. The UK continues to call for International Humanitarian Law to be respected and civilians to be protected.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister of State for International Development on 8 November 2023, what proportion of the additional £30 million of aid made available to the Occupied Palestinian Territories since the 7 October has entered Gaza as of 8 November 2023.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Three UK flights carrying a total of 51 tonnes of aid have landed in Egypt (on 25 October, 2 November and 3 November). The shipments have included lifesaving items such as wound care packs, water filters and solar powered lights as well as vital equipment including forklift trucks, belt conveyors and lighting towers, specifically requested by UK partners in the region to manage and deliver the aid more effectively. We are reliant on our partners, including the United Nations, to deliver UK aid and cannot currently provide an exact proportion. We are focused on enabling further humanitarian access through the Rafah crossing and other land routes, which is the most effective way of getting humanitarian support in at scale. We are also urging Israel to open other border crossings, such as Kerem Shalom, to enable more humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need. This is still not enough to meet the immediate needs of the population and we have consistently called for humanitarian pauses to allow aid in and hostages out and we welcome the announcement of four-hour pauses in north Gaza as a first step. We continue urgently to explore further diplomatic options and all practical routes, working with the UN and other partners in doing so and the UK continues to stress to all parties the need to protect border crossings to support safe humanitarian access and mitigate harm to civilians.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has had recent discussions with representatives of the (a) United Nations Relief and Works Agency and (b) United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on the number of civilians present in (i) Gaza City and (ii) northern Gaza.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We have no means of independently verifying numbers and it is difficult for organisations like the UN to accurately verify numbers. The UK, however, remains committed to the safety and security of those in Gaza and our focus right now is getting humanitarian aid into Gaza and to ordinary Palestinians there. Since 7 October, the UK Government has already announced an additional £30 million in humanitarian funding and has sent more than 51 tonnes of emergency relief for civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). This funding will support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in responding to critical food, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza. We further maintain regular contact with both the UNRWA and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on a full range of issues relating to conflict in Israel and the OPTs.