Gaza: Al-Ahli Arab Hospital Explosion

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. We constantly assess the threat picture both here in the UK and in the region. I have conducted an all-staff meeting with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office staff across the whole world—I am told that over 5,000 people attended that briefing. I made it clear that, as their employer, I regard my duty of care towards them as uppermost. We do of course continue to support British nationals overseas, including in the region, and our consular team are maintaining, as best they can, contact with British nationals in Israel, and indeed in Gaza. It is an incredibly difficult consular situation, but I can assure the House that we will remain, as far as we are able to, in contact with those British nationals seeking our support, and we are consistently trying to reopen exit routes from Gaza so that British nationals can leave.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Ind)]

The Foreign Secretary will be aware of the horror with which the missile strike on a hospital in Gaza, which caused hundreds upon hundreds of casualties, is regarded not just here in Britain, but in the region and internationally. The House has heard his injunction not to jump to conclusions, but would he support a genuinely independent inquiry into what is happening?

[James Cleverly]

Of course, an independent inquiry is the gold standard in the event of such a circumstance, but the simple truth in relation to having any kind of independent investigation in Gaza is that the current situation—bearing in mind that our own embassy team there are severely limited in what they are able to do, and the international community is not able to operate freely—makes the practicality of that incredibly difficult. We are making our own assessment. We will gather and analyse as much information as we can. We will not be led by any other nation; it will be a UK assessment of the situation. Once we have come to a conclusion, we will share it with the House and the country.