Middle East

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The Minister for the middle east, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), is currently travelling to New York to meet the Yemeni Foreign Minister to discuss these issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) is absolutely right about the Houthis. Their horrendous behaviour, sabotaging international trade and killing people in the Red sea, is entirely unacceptable.

This will be very interesting. Now that we have this ceasefire, will the Houthis hold to it in the Red sea? We will act where we need to, to deal with the problems we are seeing in the Red sea. This is a moment to have hope for those two states, and to keep that alive. With the incoming Trump Administration’s previous commitment to the Abraham accords, I ask my hon. Friend to be hopeful about achieving that full recognition and those two states.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s tone, content and, above all else, caution. There are clearly concerns that Hamas are trying to resile from the commitments they have made in this deal. In fact, overnight, their leader praised the events of 7 October, vowed to keep repeating them until Israel is eliminated and called upon all his followers to continue the fight.

Equally, the Foreign Secretary has not mentioned that part of this deal, as I understand it, will see the release of Palestinian prisoners who have been convicted of terrorist offences. The risk is that they will return and cause more problems. What can he do to ensure that Hamas are eliminated from government in Gaza, so that the Palestinian Authority can take control and ensure that peace is restored to the region? We look forward to the release of the hostages and, indeed, the cessation of hostilities.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is right that, over this period, we could see up to 1,500 prisoners released. It will be weighing very heavily on the hearts of many Israelis that among those prisoners will be people who have committed murder, and it will weigh heavily on their hearts that those people are returning to Gaza.

Our view is that we need a political process if we are to undermine seasoned terrorists who, by necessity, are swapped to get these hostages out. This is a delicate process. There is a process within Israel in which some of the affected families can object, but the hon. Gentleman is right to recognise the balance that has been struck to achieve the hostage deal and the necessary ceasefire over the coming days.