Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It gives me great pleasure to follow in the footsteps of distinguished hon. Members, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who has spent many years campaigning on this topic. I well remember when he played a vital role in securing a vote in the House of Commons to recognise the Palestinian state, but the UK Government still refuse to give that recognition. I am limited by time, and I want to give the Minister as much time as possible to answer all the questions that have been asked, but I will start by saying that, importantly, this is a different debate. It is about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. We want to know what the Government can do to alleviate some of that pain and suffering.

The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) spoke strongly, with great experience and passion, and as president of the Conservative Middle East Council, about how what has taken place in Gaza is legally and morally wrong. He was very plain with his words and I am grateful to him for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) mentioned Jamie McGoldrick. We are all putting a lot of hope and faith into his role for the future of the conflict. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and I travelled to the west bank together and had an emotional and educational visit. Many hon. Members have had similar trips. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) focused her contribution on the problems with the water and electricity supplies and the real humanitarian situation on the ground. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) talked about the permits. I saw at first hand how children who were leaving Gaza to try to get medical assistance in the west bank had to travel with family friends or others, because they had to leave the country with someone who was over a certain age, so they could not be assisted by their parents.

This debate comes at a vital time for the Palestinian people. It is no exaggeration to say that their whole future in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is now under direct threat. If we do not act in Britain, Europe, the United States or the middle east, or through the United Nations, millions will suffer from continued violence, from a lack of the most basic public services and clean water, and from a shortage of places to live.

The Trump Administration substantially cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The EU has partially stepped up to the plate by announcing €3 million of new humanitarian aid to help civilians in Gaza in need of urgent assistance. In response, the UK decided to advance £28 million of agreed funding. Yesterday, the ad hoc committee for voluntary contributions to UNRWA met for the first time, and my reading is that the United Kingdom has donated a further $51 million, or £38.5 million. I welcome that contribution whole- heartedly. Will the Minister report back fully on yesterday’s meeting and what money will be targeted specifically at Gaza? We know that will be reliant on Israeli co-operation.

More than 120,000 people are still disconnected from public water networks, and 23% of Gaza is not connected to the sewerage system. Some 96% of the water from Gaza’s coastal aquifer is contaminated with nitrates and chlorides. Only a quarter of wells in Gaza meet World Health Organisation safety levels.

We are here today to offer advice to the British Government on what they can do economically, socially and politically to help the Palestinians in their hour of need. Last week, to mark the UN’s World Refugee Day, the leader of the Labour party visited two of the biggest Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. This week, Prince William is visiting the Occupied Palestinian Territories in an important symbolic act aimed at showing that people in Britain do care about the plight of the Palestinians. What is the Minister doing to argue for better access to Gaza so that the international community, non-governmental organisations, charities and politicians here can visit, so that the crimes perpetrated on Gaza are not hidden behind blockade walls?

We have to begin by acknowledging that the humanitarian crisis is man-made. It is vital to resolve Gaza’s catastrophic lack of clean water and electricity, as well as its health system, which is hanging by a thread, and other life-threatening problems that experts say will make the strip uninhabitable in a matter of years. The utter desperation rife in the squalid, bombed-out settlements of Gaza has in recent weeks manifested itself in huge protests and an Israeli response that has shocked and appalled. As Members have said, we condemn any acts of terror by Hamas, just as we condemn the appalling actions of the Israeli Government.

Since the first protests on 30 March, the Israel Defence Forces have killed 135 Palestinians, including a young medic, 21-year-old Razan al-Najjar. Nearly 15,000 people have been injured, with 4,000 of those injuries caused by live ammunition. Sixteen children have been killed. Five Israelis have been injured. This puts further pressure on Gaza’s health system, which was anyway already on the brink of collapse, according to the World Health Organisation. I do not have the time to go into the details of those outrageous, disproportionate and illegal acts, which have been covered many times in previous debates and today. Instead, I will use my time to pin down some of the humanitarian situation and what DFID can do to improve the lives of these people in the most dire of situations.

Protecting the Palestinians is an international obligation —let us be clear about that, too. In fact, it is the international community’s collective responsibility as states party to the fourth Geneva convention to provide protection to Palestinians in the occupied territories. The British Government should not be ordering their diplomats to vote against or abstain on resolutions that uphold international law.

I will move on to some questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer. Currently the Government do not disaggregate their DFID spending for Gaza and that for the west bank. Will he consider reviewing that approach, so that our development work in Gaza, which is clearly a separate and defined area under blockade, can be more readily reviewed by this House? At present, the movement and access restrictions imposed by Israel significantly constrain the health system in Gaza. Access to treatment is impeded by the inability to import medical equipment, and administrative constraints are placed on people seeking medical attention outside Gaza. What progress has the Minister made in talks with the Israeli Government on expediting medical permits for those who require treatment outside Gaza?

The UK is supporting water and sanitation needs through £1.9 million-worth of support to UNICEF and £1.5 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross, helping support patients in 11 hospitals in Gaza. Will the Minister tell us more about those projects? Are those the only Gaza-specific aid contributions made by the UK Government to Gaza, outside obviously of their contributions to UNRWA, which supports 1.3 million people in Gaza? If I am allowed a crude calculation, if the population of Gaza is near enough 2 million, that money works out at just £1.70 a person in Gaza over one year. That funding finishes in September 2018. Will the Minister tell us when we will hear about future years’ funding?

In answer to written question 144778 in May, the Minister said he is reviewing how the UK can best support the health system in Gaza. What does that review involve and when will he report to the House? If elected, Labour will recognise the state of Palestine immediately. The Minister has been asked before why his Government do not recognise Palestine right now. If not now, when? He often talks with great empathy about the polarisation and worsening of the situation between Israel and Palestine. The reality of this Government’s actions is that they are providing very good critiques of the situation, but are failing to act robustly when they should be upholding international law. They should be taking action, not simply offering words.

On America, we often hear the Minister take a different line from that of US counterparts. That is of course welcome, but this Government must have the courage to tell President Trump that he is wrong. What is the Minister doing to work with other European and global partners so that all the UK’s eggs are not in the Trump basket and we are not reliant on the peace plan of Jared Kushner?

Finally, in his response to a House of Commons debate on 15 May on violence at the Gaza border, the Minister said:

“we are supportive of that independent, transparent investigation.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 139.]

When the UN Human Rights Council resolved to set up a commission of inquiry to undertake precisely that investigation, the UK failed to join 29 partner countries and abstained in the vote. We are still waiting for an explanation of that decision.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Alistair Burt)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I begin by once again thanking the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for securing the debate. His long-standing commitment to and passion for the Palestinian people is well known and appreciated by many. The conviction with which he speaks is noted.

There have been a number of powerful speeches on all sides. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) went through them, and I do not intend to add to that. It is impossible to pick out all the speeches, but I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames). He spoke about his admiration for the state of Israel and his worry about where Israel policy has gone in relation to Gaza and the humanitarian concerns. I am sure he spoke for many in expressing not only the interest that the House has in the future security and existence of the state of Israel, but the worry, because of the humanitarian situation we have all described, about policy in terms of Gaza.

It is difficult to approach the issue in a new way, but I will say something towards the end about that, if I may. To begin, I would like to concentrate on the humanitarian issues. As so many Members have spoken and so much has been said, it is impossible to cover everything, so I hope colleagues will bear with me.

Last month, I visited Gaza again. I say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) that we will do what we can to assist Members of Parliament in going, because there is nothing like seeing things on both sides, but it must be for Israel to decide in terms of security. We are all subject to caution about that. While I was there, I once again saw the extreme humanitarian difficulties that the people of Gaza now face. As Members have noted over the course of the debate, people there are living without enough fresh water, with only four hours of power a day, with some of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world and, perhaps most important, with diminishing hope for their own or their children’s futures.

I will pick out a few key parts of the humanitarian system. Without additional support, the health system is unable to cope with the high casualty rates from the demonstrations. Between 30 March and 12 June, 14,605 people were injured and a further 135 died. Between 30 March and 3 June, two health workers were killed and 328 were injured, including by live ammunition and tear gas. An estimated 80,000 additional non-trauma patients have had limited access to emergency healthcare services. Shortages of medicines are chronic in Gaza. An estimated 1.2 million Gaza residents have no access to running water. A lack of adequate sanitation facilities poses a serious health risk. Approximately 1.45 million people in the Gaza strip are at risk of contracting waterborne diseases from the consumption of unsafe water. Gaza has three main sources of electricity supply: Israel, Egypt and the Gaza power plant. The most stable of those sources is from Israel, which supplies 120 MW of electricity through 10 feeder lines, but those are unstable, as we know.

[Mark Pritchard in the Chair]

The food and nutrition situation remains difficult. An estimated 1.6 million people do not have reliable access to nutritious food in Gaza and are judged to be food-insecure. As I will say later, someone doing an objective assessment of whether the policies in relation to Gaza are working would come to the answer, “No”.

Before I come on to the politics, colleagues rightly want to know what we are trying to do. There are three key issues: first, the need to alleviate the urgent humanitarian need; secondly, the need to unlock the barriers to an improved quality of life for Gazans through economic development; and thirdly, the need to work with international partners to secure political agreements that will ease movement and access restrictions to Gaza.

The Department for International Development is stepping up its support to alleviate humanitarian need. When I was in Gaza I announced £1.5 million for the International Committee of the Red Cross appeal. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton asked for a little more information. That money will help 11 hospitals. I went to the al-Quds hospital in Gaza city, which was spotless. I met some of the doctors involved in treating patients there and some of the patients. Our work will help some of those 11 hospitals and their patients with the restocking of surgical equipment and medicines and with providing physical rehabilitation.

We are also committing an extra £2 million to UNICEF to address urgent water and sanitation needs. That will help Gazans to have access to clean water to drink, cook and bathe. Our support will provide more than 1,000 roof water tanks for families to help them to store scarce water, drinking water tanks, and chemicals to treat water in 280 wells and 38 desalination plants, making water safe for human use.

Colleagues have mentioned access. We value the role of the UN in co-ordinating humanitarian worker access and in supporting the safe reconstruction of Gaza. The UK is committed to an extension of support for the UN access and co-ordination unit, which works to ensure humanitarian access for UN and non-governmental organisation workers.

The UN Relief and Works Agency plays a vital role in providing basic services. We are, of course, concerned about the lack of finance for Gaza, particularly as a result of the United States’ decision to reconsider its financial commitment. UNRWA will struggle to survive unless we can find a way around this. Accordingly, I have announced £28.5 million, which I committed at the UNRWA pledging conference in Rome. Yesterday, at the UN Security Council, we pledged a further £10 million, making the £38.5 million that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton mentioned. That is money being brought forward to give to UNRWA now to help it to meet the shortfall. I hope that that is appropriate.

[Dan Carden]

Is that new money, or is it bringing money forward?