Occupied Palestinian Territories

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to have secured this Adjournment debate on Government support for the people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but I regret immensely the need to do so. I, like most of the world, was horrified by Hamas’s attack on Israel and Hamas’s killing and kidnapping of Israeli citizens. I supported, and continue to support, Israel’s right to self-defence in response to that attack.

I also know that today—at least when the sun sets—will be Yom Ha’atzmaut. That is Israel’s Independence Day, when many Israelis will be celebrating their country. None the less, I am here today to ask three principal questions of the Government. First, what more can they do to support the people of Palestine? Secondly, what can the British public, particularly my constituents in Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, do as individuals and as a community to support the people of Palestine? Thirdly, if the Government believe that there is nothing more we as a Government, as a nation or as individuals can do to support the Palestinians, could the Minister please inform the House, so that we may so inform our constituents? I said I had three questions, but in actual fact I have 12 questions for my hon. Friend the Minister, and that I will be counting them as I ask them and as she replies; this is a very important subject, and there is a lot to cover.

The north-east of England may seem far away from Gaza and the west bank—it may even seem far away from London to some—but 24 hours a day the consequences of Israel’s humanitarian blockade and use of weapons of modern warfare against civilians plays out on family televisions and social media platforms in the north-east, as it should. My constituents watch as the body of a five-year-old girl is pulled from beneath the wreckage of a car she was riding in with her family—a car that the Israel Defence Forces attacked with the most powerful weapons of modern warfare. My constituents watch a 20-day-old baby in Gaza, wrapped in a blanket by that baby’s hysterical relatives, frozen to death in a sub-tropical country—the fifth child to die from hypothermia in Gaza in six days last winter. My constituents watch one by one the deaths of the 100 Palestinian children the Israel Defence Forces killed or maimed every day in the 10 days from 21 to 31 March.

I know that my constituents see this because they stop me in the street in Newcastle—in Grainger Market when I am buying my vegetables, on the West Road when I am visiting local businesses, when I play bingo in Blakelaw, when I visit cultural centres in Benwell and Scotswood, support community centres in Fenham and knock on doors in Lemington. They ask me, “What can we do to stop the suffering we see?”

I also know this because they write to me. One wrote:

“I kindly request that you please advocate for the people of Gaza in Parliament, as they too have the right to defend themselves, they too have the right to feel safe, to live in peace and enjoy freedom and liberty without occupation, colonisation or terrorism.”

Another said:

“As a Jewish constituent of yours, I am very concerned about our Government’s relative silence regarding Israel’s abandonment of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, brokered by Qatar and Egypt. It is utterly deplorable that Israel is once again slaughtering Gazan civilians.”

I quote another constituent:

“What is the Government doing to stop the killing of Palestinian people?”

Another wrote:

“We are witnessing the most horrific of nightmares unfold. Trapped. Starved. Bombed. Surrounded by Israeli forces, with many of those who try to flee being shot at. Palestinians in north Gaza are living under a suffocating siege. Children are being bombed when they play on street corners. In central Gaza, people are being burnt alive in tents that were made to protect them. The UK must act urgently to protect Palestinians from extermination in Gaza.”

Finally, a constituent said:

“Last week, a new UN report detailed Israel’s sexual and reproductive violence: like the killing of pregnant women, the rape of male detainees, the destruction of an IVF clinic with its 4,000 embryos. Waging war on Palestinians’ ability to reproduce were termed ‘genocidal acts’. Last week, Israel’s environment Minister declared the ‘only solution for the Gaza strip is to empty it of Gazans’. I could go on as it seems there are limitless examples of other such acts. How can these actions so documented, evidenced and confessed to—facilitated by western weapons and diplomatic support—continue? No one in UK politics or media circles can plausibly say, ‘I did not know what was really happening’.”

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

I have to intervene, because my hon. Friend’s experiences are the same as those I am having with my constituents. They are continuously asking me what we are doing to stop this bloodshed—the killing of women and children that is carrying on. When our diplomacy and negotiations are not having any effect on Israel and, I have to say, the United States, who our allies, for how long are we going to continue to wait for Israel to act to stop the bloodshed before we take further action that can have some effect?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am pleased, though not surprised, to hear that the people of Wolverhampton West and the people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, as well as people across our country, have a similar response to the horrific acts and suffering they are seeing. As I will set out in my remarks, my objective is to ask—indeed, to demand—what more we can do, and will do, to ensure that the suffering comes to an end.

The examples that I read out are just a minute sample of what my constituents write and say to me. I have had hundreds and hundreds of emails, letters and exchanges on the streets of Newcastle. I emphasise that while many of the constituents who raise issues are Muslim or of Muslim heritage, many more are not. Many Christians were particularly appalled by the Israeli Government’s Palm Sunday attack on the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, run by the Anglican diocese of Jerusalem—as a statement from the House of Bishops, supported by the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley, has emphasised. That is why I am here: to address and demand action in relation to the horror and despair my constituents feel about the consequences of the Israeli Government’s blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza and the Israeli Defence Forces’ killing of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, in Gaza and the west bank.

My constituents simply do not believe that we as a nation, a people and a leading voice in the world community are helpless to affect in any way the behaviour of the Government of Israel—a nation with which for decades we have enjoyed friendly relations and strong diplomatic ties. It is a nation that many of us believed shared our values, our commitment to human rights and democracy, and our principled opposition to racism and ethnic cleansing.

At some level, we are all aware of the extremely long and complex history of what is now the state of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the west bank and Gaza, and the intertwining of the modern part of that history with both the British empire and the Holocaust. I do not wish to retell that story, as although I think this Adjournment debate will go on for longer than was anticipated, it cannot be long enough to do full justice to that history, so instead I will start from 7 October 2023.

On that day, Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups based in Gaza launched a sickening attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 Israeli men, women and children in horrific circumstances. Hamas and their allies kidnapped 251 Israelis and other nationalities and held them as hostages. My constituents were, as I was, absolutely horrified by those events, and supportive of the Israelis as victims of horrible crimes and, as a nation like ours, entitled to exercise their right to self-defence.

The stories of the experiences of Israelis—some facing their last moments—inspired huge sympathy and understanding among the people of the north-east. We stood with Israel in its demand that the hostages be immediately released and recognised that Israel had a right to defend itself and a right to strike against Hamas.

Five hundred and seventy-one days of violence have followed, with two periods of ceasefire—seemingly endless days of the world’s most powerful weapons being used against civilians by one of the world’s most powerful militaries. I just want to emphasise that Israel is the 15th most powerful nation in total firepower, according to Global Firepower. Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health has reported that between 7 October 2023 and 8 April 2025, the Israel Defence Forces have killed 51,000 Palestinians and injured over 100,000. Their numbers include 166 journalists and media workers, 120 academics and more than 224 humanitarian aid workers.

Estimates of the proportion of the dead in Gaza who are civilians range from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz’s 61% to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s estimate of 90%. A detailed study of bodies found in Gaza residential buildings by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that 44% were children and a further 27% were women, which makes a total of 71% and suggests that the total when civilian men are included is likely to be closer to 90% than 61%. A joint report by Oxfam and Action on Armed Violence in October 2024 found that the Israeli military had killed more women and children in Gaza than had been killed in any other conflict around the world in the past two decades. These numbers do not include deaths from disease and malnutrition.

Israel has contested some numbers provided by the Gaza Health Ministry, but early in the war, Israel Defence Forces officials told The Times of Israel that approximately 66% of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza were civilians. Given that Israel does not provide its own figures for civilians killed in Gaza, nor does it permit UN fact-finders, international journalists or the BBC to enter Gaza, we must go with other sources. In January 2025, a peer reviewed study in The Lancet, the UK’s premier medical journal, suggested that the Gaza Ministry of Health was undercounting the death toll by 41%. If that study is accurate, it is likely that the death toll in Gaza as a result of Israel’s military operations today stands at over 90,000. In addition, 70% of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed by the Israelis.

There were audible sighs of relief across the country, and indeed the world, at the ceasefire of 19 January this year. However, on 18 March, Israel launched what it called “extensive strikes” in Gaza. Earlier in March, Israel’s Government blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. No supplies, including food and medicine, have entered Gaza in over seven weeks and 95% of aid operations in Gaza have been suspended or dramatically cut back. A joint statement issued on 17 April by a dozen aid organisations based in multiple countries, including Oxfam, CARE and Save the Children, confirmed that they had all the means necessary to deliver aid, but were being denied access to Gaza by Israeli authorities.

Infectious diseases, particularly those that affect children, are now on the rise. The World Food Programme announced three days ago that despite more than 116,000 tonnes of aid being ready at the border, 91% of Gaza’s population, which is 1,802,000 people—human beings —face

“high levels of acute food insecurity”.

That is basically international aid jargon that means malnutrition and actual starvation. This is my fourth question for my hon. Friend the Minister. Can she confirm that that is the Government’s understanding of the humanitarian situation in Gaza today?

I will move on to what can be done to support the Palestinians in Palestine. I know that the Government are taking action by pressing for an immediate ceasefire and the release of the hostages, increasing funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, signing a memorandum of understanding with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, condemning settlements and settler violence in the occupied west bank, sanctioning settler groups involved in violence, and undertaking a comprehensive review of arms sales to Israel, which has resulted in the suspension of some arms transfers. I have also been advised that pressure on Israel would be more effective if the Palestinian high commissioner in Jerusalem and the UK ambassador to Israel in Tel Aviv were able to work more closely together. Could the Minister tell me if that is happening or if that is the case? That is question five.

I greatly welcome the fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has stated that the Israeli Government’s

“decision to block aid going into Gaza is completely wrong and should not be supported”—[Official Report, 3 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 32.]

However, the Israeli Government continue to kill Palestinian civilians, particularly children, and continue to prevent the flow of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza. My constituents ask me what the Government are doing to end that, and that is the question that I repeat to my hon. Friend the Minister. Specifically—question six—will the UK respond to the International Court of Justice’s summer ruling on the legality of the Israeli occupation, and will the UK support the current case before the ICJ on humanitarian access in order to better hold the Israeli Government to account?

I shall turn now to what my constituents can do directly to support the Government in supporting Palestine, and to support Palestine directly. Newcastle, as I hope all Members are aware, has a long history of support for social justice and international solidarity. The people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West want to know how they can support the people of Palestine, so can the Minister tell me if the Government support the right of my constituents to protest and to show their horror at the death and destruction in Palestine? If so, how?

Money matters, so can my constituents support the people of Palestine through the way in which they spend or do not spend their money? Are there goods and services that they can buy from Palestinians? Is it clear what goods are from the illegally occupied Palestinian territories and what goods are from Israel? How can my constituents distinguish between the two? That is question eight.

Geordies are famously generous, and my constituents want to know how they can help Palestinians through their charitable giving without helping Hamas. With aid rotting at the border, which non-governmental organisations or charities does the Minister recommend my constituents support to ensure that aid gets through? On social media, there are regular appeals from GoFundMe accounts to help victims of Israeli military strikes or the blockade individually. Does the Minister recommend that my constituents provide funding to those appeals, and if not, how can they provide support to the people they are watching die on their screens?

Alternatively, are there other organisations to support advocacy efforts, legal aid and other forms of assistance that do not rely on physical access to Gaza itself? The UN Human Rights Council has identified what it calls “clear evidence” of war crimes being committed by Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. The International Criminal Court intends to investigate the evidence of war crimes, but—question 11—what can my constituents do to support the survivors of war crimes on the ground? Finally, how can my constituents support constructive engagement between Palestinians and Israelis? That is question 12.

Every day, the people of Newcastle express to me how intensely they want their Government to act and how intensely they wish to directly and personally support the people of Palestine and help end their suffering. In the future, I believe we will all be asked what we did in the face of this horror. I urge the Minister to advise the people of Newcastle what the Government are doing to stop the Israeli Government’s killing of civilians, particularly children, and their blockade on food and medicine reaching the people of the Gaza strip, and to advise us on what we as individuals and as a community can do. If nothing more can be done by the British Government, in addition to what the Minister and the Foreign Office have talked about and the announced actions that have not resulted in the lifting of the blockade or the ending of Israeli strikes on Gaza, can the Minister be clear about that? If my constituents are condemned to watch the Israeli Government use their tanks, artillery and war planes against apartment buildings, tent encampments and family cars, and to watch dead toddlers being pulled from the rubble of their homes on the 10 o’clock news every night, please tell us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

We have three colleagues who also wish to contribute. I turn to Andy Slaughter first.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Catherine West)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah) for securing it; she is an active campaigner on this topic and on a number of other foreign policy matters. I also thank her for the thoughtful way in which she put the debate in context. Of course, tomorrow is Yom Ha’atzmaut, which is a national holiday in Israel, and my hon. Friend also emphasised the suffering from the dreadful attacks in October 2023—the horrific terror attacks—and her support for the people of Israel following that terrible moment. She is quite right to ask how she can support the situation in the middle east, quoting her constituents assiduously, and to ask how she can respond to their compassion and concern.

The Minister for the Middle East, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), would usually have been at the Dispatch Box for this debate. He will watch it later on, and will be very happy to reply to any bits that I miss out, or any questions that are only half-answered—as the Minister for the Indo-Pacific, I might occasionally answer only half the question, rather than give the full answer that the Minister for the Middle East could provide. I am also grateful to the hon. Members for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) and for Burnley (Oliver Ryan), and I will attempt to answer some of the questions raised and respond to some of the points made.

The Government are steadfast in our friendship with, and support for, the Palestinian people. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West asked what support we can provide and what more we can do. Several Members have mentioned the visit of Palestinian Prime Minister Mustafa to London yesterday for high-level meetings with both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and I reassure my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith and Chiswick and for Wolverhampton West that we support the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, including to an independent state. Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister signed a memorandum of understanding with Prime Minister Mustafa, enshrining the UK’s commitment to advancing Palestinian statehood as part of a two-state solution. That memorandum of understanding also underscored the commitment of the Palestinian Authority to deliver its reform agenda as a matter of priority.

I now turn to the UK’s support for Gaza, and the main question that my hon. Friend’s constituents in Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West want an answer to: is the UK doing all it possibly can to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Gaza? In the last financial year, the UK provided £129 million in funding to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or OPTs. This week, the UK announced a £101 million package of funding for this financial year, which will include substantial funding for the humanitarian response in Gaza, as well as support for Palestinian economic development and strengthening the Palestinian Authority’s governance and reform—they have to be ready. Our support is making a real difference to those who need it most. To date, the UK’s support has provided essential healthcare to over 430,000 people, food to almost 650,000 people, and improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene services to close to 380,000 people.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her comments and the context she is giving. I just want to be clear about something: is the humanitarian aid we are providing to Gaza getting through into Gaza right now?

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is right to say that funding is one thing and access is another. That is why it is crucial that we have been pressing the Government of Israel to ensure that vital aid can reach Gaza and that our humanitarian partners, including the United Nations, can deliver their work effectively. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Burnley for reminding the House that UNRWA funding was reintroduced under this Government, and for emphasising that UNRWA has been at the centre of things since July last year. Given the infrastructure that it has on the ground, it is critical to the provision of assistance.

In addition, UK funding to UK-Med has helped to sustain its field hospital operations. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West asked which organisations can be trusted to deliver. UK-Med has facilitated more than 405,000 consultations in Gaza since January 2024, so that patients can receive critical life and limb-saving surgery. We are also providing funding to the World Health Organisation Egypt to ensure vital medical supplies reach evacuated Gazans being treated there.

My hon. Friend asks who can help. Our Government, through the international groups such as the World Health Organisation that public funding goes towards, are providing this vital treatment. The experts in development aid always say it is best to work through those big funding organisations, because they do that enormously helpful work. For example, there is the delivery of the polio vaccination campaigns. My hon. Friend mentioned communicable diseases and the risk of further illness, but that polio vaccination campaign protected more than 600,000 vulnerable children across Gaza through funding to the global polio eradication initiative. We know that the scale of the crisis means that more support is crucial. That is why we continue to support UNRWA’s vital work. That includes providing essential services, education and healthcare to civilians in Gaza and the west bank and to Palestinian refugees across the region.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West]

As my hon. Friend will, I think, appreciate, many Israelis say that people outside the region simply do not understand their desire for security. Equally, Palestinian communities say that those outside the region cannot possibly understand the extent of their suffering. That, in a nutshell, is the depth of what we are facing, and that is why we must redouble our efforts not just to make the case to the senior people involved and the decision-makers in this conflict, but to impress on them the importance for our constituents that their reply must be true and must come with some action attached.

Let me return briefly to the subject of the strike on the UN compound on 19 March. Israel has admitted that it was caused by one of its tanks, despite the compound being known to the IDF as a UN humanitarian facility. That is inexcusable, and we urge Israel to ensure that accurate public statements are made about such grave incidents. It must conduct full and transparent investigations of these incidents, hold those responsible to account, and reinstate an effective deconfliction system to prevent such terrible tragedies from reoccurring.

Members have mentioned the International Court of Justice. Let me remind them of what has been said in the past by both the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for the Middle East:

“The UK is fully committed to international law and respects the independence of the International Court of Justice. We continue to consider the Court’s Advisory Opinion carefully, with the seriousness and rigour it deserves.”

Let me reassure Members on both sides of the House that we are committed to a two-state solution, and that commitment is unwavering. The statement continued:

“We are of the clear view that Israel should bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as rapidly as possible, but it must be done in a way that creates the conditions for negotiations towards a two-state solution.”

That, I know, is an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick has raised on a number of occasions in his cross-party work on this important subject.

The hon. Member for Burnley mentioned settlements and settler violence. The UK Government’s position is that Israeli settlements in the west bank are illegal under international law, and harm prospects for a two-state solution. Settlements do not offer security to either Israel or Palestinians. Settlement expansion and settler violence have reached record levels. The Israeli Government seized more of the west bank in 2024 than in the past 20 years, and that is completely unacceptable. The Foreign Secretary met Palestinian community members in the west bank, where he heard how communities—not just Palestinian communities, but other local groups—are affected, and made it clear to Israeli Ministers that the Israeli Government must clamp down on settler violence and end settlement expansion.

I thank the hon. Member for Burnley for mentioning the hostages. This is, of course, a situation about which we feel very strongly, because of the involvement of the British hostages and people who have family members still stuck with the terrible terrorist group Hamas. Let me respond briefly to the hon. Gentleman’s point. The UK Government welcomed the announcement of an agreement last January to end the fighting in Gaza and release the 38 hostages, including the British national Emily Damari and the UK-linked Eli Sharabi. Securing an immediate ceasefire and the safe release of all hostages has been a priority for the Government since the start of the conflict, and we will not stop until they are all back at home. The death of Oded Lifshitz, who had strong UK links and was tragically held hostage by terrorists in Gaza, is absolutely heartbreaking This is a crucial time for the region, and we thank Qatar, Egypt and the United States for their support in bringing the horrific ordeal of those individuals and their families to an end. The hostages have endured unimaginable suffering, and the situation in Gaza has continued to worsen. The ceasefire needs to get back on track.

I want to briefly mention the Bibas family—our thoughts are with them. They are going through intolerable anguish over Shiri and her young children Kfir and Ariel. As the Prime Minister said, we want to see all remaining hostages released and the ceasefire restarted. The Government remain committed to working with international partners to end the suffering and secure long-term peace in the middle east.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am sure the Minister will join me in expressing our pleasure at seeing the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his place. I would not have felt that I had really had an Adjournment debate had I not heard his voice, for which I am very grateful.

I thank the Minister for her comments. She mentioned that the settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. One of the questions I put to her was about distinguishing between goods from illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and goods from Israel so that my constituents can make decisions about what they purchase.

[Catherine West]

With my hon. Friend’s permission, I will write to her on that point or ask the Minister for the Middle East to write to her. With Israel being a close friend of the UK, we have a trading relationship with it. On her specific point about whether there are particular products that could be purchased to support the situation at the moment—for example, specific products that may have been made by particular groups that she wishes to support, such as traditional handicrafts and so forth—I will seek the guidance of officials so that I can write to her with confidence. More generally, we are keen to maintain our trading relationship, which gives us another way of talking to Israel about this important question.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister greatly for her generosity. As the Minister for the Indo-Pacific, she did a fantastic job of setting out the complex issues in response to Members’ contributions. I will take her up on her offer to write to me on these issues, and I will make sure that the Minister for the Middle East has both the Hansard record and a copy of all the questions I have set out.

[Catherine West]

I think my hon. Friend came into the House with me in 2015, and we have learned some very nice manners over the years. It is very important in these potentially heartfelt debates that we have the tone that we have had this afternoon.

The Government are steadfast in our friendship with, and support for, the Palestinian people—my hon. Friend can reassure her constituents about that. Our support for the Palestinian Authority continues to provide essential services, and promotes reform and state building. Our support for the humanitarian response in Gaza provides food and medical assistance to those who most need it, and we will keep pressing for access. Our consistent support for Palestinian statehood through a two-state solution aims to ensure a political horizon and future in which Palestinians and Israelis can live in peace and security. In the end, that is the only solution that can bring stability and prosperity to the entire region.

Question put and agreed to.