Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this very important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing it.

I do not want to repeat the statistics that have already been referred to, but I think that we need to look dispassionately at the evidence of the unfolding catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza. I would like to echo the comments of other Members. My experience when I was part of a delegation to the occupied territories was that we were not able to effect entry into Gaza. I appeal to the Minister to try to make representations to the Israeli Government to ensure that that is possible.

According to Oxfam, at least 80% of the population in Gaza rely on humanitarian aid to survive. It is clear that many—in fact, nearly all—of the key industries were destroyed during the three military interventions, and as a consequence more than 60% of Gazan youth are unemployed. I understand that that is the highest rate in the world.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) referred to the actions of Hamas. Clearly, Opposition Members and, I think, Members across the whole House condemn violent actions. In truth, the Gaza blockade began long before Hamas came to power in Gaza. I remind my right hon. and hon. Friends that it started with Israel cancelling the general exit permit out of the Gaza strip in 1991. To suggest that the current situation in Gaza is down to Hamas alone does not fit into the facts or the realities on the ground. Gaza has been accurately described as a vast open prison, a strip of territory hermetically sealed from the outside world by Israel and Egypt. Since 2007, Israel has repeatedly attacked fisherman off the Gazan coast. A number have been killed and more than 30 injured in recent years as a result of the policy of restricting the distance from the coast that the Gazan fisherman are allowed to fish to between three and six nautical miles.

The irony is that Gaza does potentially have some natural resources and some opportunity to trade, not least the quite extensive gas reserves that have been discovered off the coast, with an estimated value of $4 billion. Israel’s military completely destroyed Gaza’s seaports in 2002 and its airport in 2001. That prevents Palestinians from engaging in direct trade with the outside world. Palestinians are barred from using about 20% of their own land space, as this is kept as a buffer zone, which Israel maintains as a kill zone, whereby Palestinians risk death if they dare to enter the area near the Gaza fence.

Not a single rocket has been fired from Gaza in the last two months, yet Israel, as we have seen, has used lethal violence against Palestinians in Gaza, while the Israelis are claiming to be the victims. I saw figures relating to the recent short period in May, which showed that 68 Palestinians were killed. Israel has multiple non-lethal methods of addressing civilian protests, and it uses them frequently. It has much expertise in such methods. Indeed, it sells them to the rest of the world. In the opinion of many, shooting live ammunition into mass, dense protests—indeed, any protest—is a war crime, and there must be repercussions. As my right hon. and hon. Friends have indicated, there must be an independent international investigation into these events. The use of live ammunition must be the very last resort and can only ever be justified where there is proven immediate threat to life and not under any other circumstance.

On Monday 14 May, there were at least 1,359 patients in Gaza’s hospitals with a variety of gunshot injuries, some of them life-changing. That was in a single day. I saw reports in our own newspapers of the Canadian President, Justin Trudeau, protesting about a Canadian doctor who was deliberately shot while he was tending to wounded Palestinians at some distance from the border fence. Palestinians are protesting in life-threatening situations because they are willing to risk their own lives for what they believe in. They believe in dignity, freedom of movement, access to electricity, clean water and the right to return home. Those are fundamental human rights, which I believe everyone in this room would support.

In Gaza, 95% of the water is undrinkable. There are between two and four hours of electricity a day, on average. There is at least 45% unemployment, and over half of the children are suffering acute mental stress. A very large percentage are suffering acute anaemia, presumably as a consequence of the unsafe drinking water. Over the half the population in Gaza are refugees from places within short journeys just outside the strip, in Israel. According to Jason Cone, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, most of the wounded patients in Gaza felt that they had no hope, nothing to lose and no jobs. They told medical staff that they were willing to go back and die at the protest sites. Many wounded protesters were returning to the demonstrations with casts, on crutches and with external fixators holding together their shattered bones.

The level of violence, with the throwing of stones and petrol bombs and other such activities, did not reach the stage that would justify the hostilities threshold, and therefore the use of live rounds should be limited to non-lethal law enforcement methods. Israeli police have used violent repression against Palestinian citizens in Israel protesting against the Gaza violence, even breaking the leg of one protestor and arresting scores of others. The only way we can alleviate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is simply for Israel to lift the blockade and allow Gaza to have a viable electricity supply, clean drinking water for the population, access to decent medical supplies, a fully functioning sewage system and freedom of movement.