Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

My hon. Friend rightly points to the limitations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation; its model has proven deadly and incapable of supplying aid at the scale required. We have co-ordinated with our partners in the way that I have described. Next week, with Egypt, we will co-chair a working group on the reconstruction of Gaza, and I assure him, as I have assured other Members, that we will continue to work with our international partners on these questions until the situation improves.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

This Government appear willing to sanction selected Israeli Ministers, while groups that have openly supported the terrorists who carried out the terrorist atrocity on 7 October are being platformed at events like Glastonbury festival. It certainly screams double standards. Sadly, it is the Jewish people in the UK who are left to face the consequences, and who cannot walk the streets of London without being harassed. How can the UK sanction people who do not live here while those who share their hatred walk freely among us?

[Mr Falconer]

I condemn antisemitism unreservedly, in London or anywhere else. Let me be clear: Hamas—the whole organisation—is proscribed in the UK. When it comes to Hamas, we do not make the careful differentiation that I have made this afternoon between Israeli Ministers. The whole organisation, lock, stock and barrel, is proscribed by the UK Home Office. That has force under law, and it does not matter whether they are here or not. We continue to call on Hamas to release hostages, to return to a ceasefire, and to have no future role in the governance of Gaza.