Gaza: UK Assessment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Edward Leigh
Main Page: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)Department Debates - View all Edward Leigh's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I have been a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel for over 40 years, longer than anybody here. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organisation that hides its own fighters under hospitals, but it is frankly unacceptable to recklessly bomb a hospital. It is unacceptable to starve a whole people. Is the Minister aware that many Friends of Israel worldwide, notwithstanding narrow legal definitions, are asking this moral question: when is genocide not genocide?
Mr Falconer
I have heard in recent weeks a series of powerful interventions from Opposition Members, and I take them seriously with the weight they hold, particularly from the Father of the House and my neighbour in Lincolnshire. We will not move towards making determinations from the Dispatch Box on questions of legal determination, but that does not mean we will wait. The preliminary judgments of the ICJ and the provisional measures it set out are important, and we will abide by them.