Israel and Palestine

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Ind)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard.

Hind Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian girl. Her family were fleeing Gaza City when their car came under attack. The first shot killed Hind’s aunt, uncle and three of her cousins. Just Hind and her 15-year-old cousin Layan were left alive. Trapped in the car and surrounded by the bodies of dead relatives, Layan phoned for help. The recording of her call with the Palestinian Red Crescent was later released. Layan told the operator:

“They are shooting at us. The tank is next to me.”

Layan’s last moments were then heard: machine gun fire, a scream, and the phone went dead.

The Red Crescent phoned back. Five-year-old Hind answered. She was now alone in the car, her cousin was dead, and Israeli forces were still close by.

“I’m so scared, please come,”

Hind told the operator. For three hours, Hind pleaded to be rescued:

“Come take me. You will come and take me?”

As it grew dark, she told the operator how frightened she was.

Eventually, Israeli authorities gave the green light for a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to be dispatched to her rescue. When it arrived, the ambulance was attacked and contact was lost. Two weeks passed before the bodies of Hind, her family and the two paramedics were recovered. All had been killed by Israeli forces. In the aftermath of these horrific events, images of Hind’s beautiful smile and the recording of her final moments caught the world’s attention.

Next month marks a year since Hind was killed. Since then, the slaughter of Palestinians has not stopped. Hind is one of more than 17,000 children killed in Israel’s assault, and one of more than 45,000 Palestinians of all ages killed. A study published last week found that 96% of children in Gaza believe that their death is imminent and that, following the trauma they have been subjected to, almost half want to die.

A new report by Amnesty International has concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide; last month, Human Rights Watch said that Israel had committed ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza; in January, the International Court of Justice found that there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza; and in July the Court said that Israel’s occupation of Palestine breached the international convention that guards against segregation and apartheid. The Israeli Prime Minister and his former Defence Secretary are now wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. So no one in this place can say they did not know what was happening or that the facts were unclear. We know what has happened in Gaza. It is an unthinkable, unspeakable horror.

The time for expressions of regret and concern are long past. International law is clear and urgent action is needed. This means ending all arms sales to Israel, including parts for the F-35 fighter jets that are raining down hell on Gaza, and, as has been explained throughout this debate, it means sanctioning Israel and boycotting trade with illegal Israeli settlements. It means upholding the ICC’s arrest warrants, and it means revoking the 2030 road map that deepens economic, trade and security ties with Israel. These measures would go some way in showing that here in Britain we recognise our shared humanity and our legal and moral responsibilities.

Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Hamish Falconer]

I reassure the hon. Member and ask him to pass on to his constituents that this Government will indeed do the right thing and stand up for international law. I have set out the manner in which we would do that over the course of this afternoon.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Ind)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to uphold their obligations under international law and therefore to issue arrest warrants to these men if they set foot on British soil. If the Government acknowledge that the Prime Minister of Israel should be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, how—morally and legally—can we continue to supply him with the weapons being used by Israel in its horrific assault on innocent civilians in Gaza?

[Hamish Falconer]

I have outlined our position in relation to both our international and domestic obligations to the ICC and our position on arms sales. I reassure my hon. Friend that we will consider the findings of the ICC in the ongoing review process in relation to arms sales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady is right: the situation on the de facto border between Lebanon and Israel is very concerning. We urge all parties to act with caution. The UK condemns the strike in the Golan heights, which has tragically claimed the lives of 12 people. Hezbollah must cease its acts and its destabilising activity. I was pleased to speak to the Prime Minister yesterday, and I will say more on Lebanon in the coming hours.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Ind)]

T3. On 19 July, the Foreign Secretary stated that half a million people in Gaza are in phase 5 of acute food insecurity, the classification that indicates starvation and famine. UNICEF reports that 29 children have died from malnutrition. How do the Government plan to change that, as Palestinians face the harrowing reality of death by starvation because of a political choice?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anneliese Dodds)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue, which we have discussed previously in this Question Time. We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza; we have reflected that in our policy response, but also in our humanitarian response. For example, in the statement that the Foreign Secretary made on his visit to the region, he committed £5.5 million to UK-Med, which is providing a field hospital on the ground that is desperately needed. We have also ensured that there will be continued provision of the items of medicine, food and nutrition that are required; we will play our part in that.

Humanitarian Situation in Gaza

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

It is because we have got one of the most robust arms export regimes in the world, and, as I have said, we need to recognise Israel’s right to defend itself. The hon. Member probably noticed what happened over the weekend with the attacks from Iran. That situation is not just important for what happens in Israel—vital though that is for those involved in Gaza—but has ripple effects that are destabilising the region, and that has global implications as well.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

We were told a month ago that 1.1 million people faced catastrophic levels of food insecurity in Gaza, and that we were reduced to air drops. The situation in northern Gaza is horrific, and it is a consequence of political choices. The World Food Programme has said that the area has been largely cut off from aid, and has recorded the highest levels of catastrophic hunger in the world. Twenty-eight innocent children are reported to have died of malnutrition and dehydration because of political choices. What meaningful, strong actions will the Government take to ensure that international law is upheld and all Palestinians have a right to food?

[David Rutley]

I have already highlighted the steps that we are taking as well as the commitments that Israel has made. We are asking Israel to step up to its commitments. It has made limited progress, and we want to see much further progress to help those people on the ground.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the importance of understanding and planning for such economic coercion. This is an area of policy that sits within my portfolio in the FCDO. Across Government, we currently have a lot of focus on thinking about how we can build resilience in UK interests and support partners.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

The Government are pursuing vital British national interest priorities. We are supporting Ukraine, and the Prime Minster has announced a further package of military support. We support Israel’s right to self-defence and are working towards a sustainable ceasefire and tackling the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We continue strongly to support freedom of navigation on the high seas and to seek to make progress on Sudan. We are implementing the international development White Paper, which has been well received around the world. I continue to deputise for the Foreign Secretary in this House and regularly seek to keep the House updated.

[Ian Byrne]

The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, said at the weekend that more than 2 million people in Gaza were facing “inevitable famine”. Now that the Government have opted to halt funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, how do they intend to ensure that the urgently needed humanitarian aid—as called for in the International Court of Justice ruling last week and which was central to the ruling—will continue to be delivered to the innocent men, women and children in Gaza, who must have a right to food?

[Mr Mitchell]

As I set out, the Government’s highest immediate priority is to ensure that aid and humanitarian support get into Gaza. We are relentlessly pursuing that objective. I have set out where we are on UNRWA, but there is no immediate effect on the food that it seeks to deliver in Gaza today.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The point I made last week is that it is not for Ministers to assert what is in effect a legal judgment and that it should be left to the courts. I think that is a sensible measure for us to accept. The hon. Member will be aware that there are many different people—I quoted, for example, the guardians of the Geneva convention and international humanitarian law—and I do not think there will be any difficulty in hearing from the judicial authorities on that matter.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

The call for a ceasefire is backed by multiple United Nations agencies, 700 NGOs, Pope Francis, more than 250 British lawyers, the 120 countries that voted in favour of a UN General Assembly motion and 76% of the public, and yesterday the Archbishop of Canterbury said that

“the call for a ceasefire is a moral cry”.

What will it take for the newly installed Secretary of State to heed these international calls and to support an immediate ceasefire?

[Mr Mitchell]

I yield to no one in my profound respect for the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I think the reasons set out by both Government and Opposition Front Benchers about why that is not a practical approach should be listened to with care. Meanwhile, we will do everything we can to address the humanitarian situation, which has been so eloquently set out across the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

With regard to the proscription of the IRGC, my hon. Friend will have heard the answer that I gave some minutes ago. The work that we are doing, in close co-ordination with the Home Secretary and her team, to ensure that communities here in the UK feel safe and secure remains an absolute priority for us. Limiting, and ideally stopping, the ability of organisations and countries to fund terrorism will remain a priority for us.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

T4. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said yesterday that an immediate and“broad humanitarian ceasefire is essential for both Gaza and Israel”and that“if more aid for Gazans, including fuel, medicine, food and water, does not arrive in days…many more people in Gaza will die.”He added:“The violence will never end unless leaders stand up and take the brave and humane choices that are required by fundamental humanity.”Will the Secretary of State heed those calls from the international community and support an immediate humanitarian ceasefire?

[Mr Mitchell]

In order to have a ceasefire, all parties have to agree to it. I refer the hon. Gentleman to other answers that have been given during this session of questions. We are doing everything we can to address the humanitarian problem that he sets out, and we will continue to do so.

UN High-level Meetings in 2023

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for securing this important debate on the upcoming UN high-level meetings on tuberculosis, pandemic preparedness and response, and universal health coverage.

The year 2023 marks the halfway point for the implementation of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals, which were adopted in 2015 and are intended to be met by 2030. They include promoting good health and wellbeing, eliminating hunger and poverty, and advancing gender equality. In April, the United Nations Secretary-General warned that

“we have stalled or gone into reverse on more than 30 per cent of the SDGs.”

He called upon all states to

“recommit to seven years of accelerated, sustained, and transformative action”.

I fear that the UK Government are failing in respect of these vital goals, both domestically and internationally. UK bilateral health aid in 2021 was down £620 million—39%—on 2020. That decrease was partly due to reduced levels of spend on the health sector in response to covid-19, but it also reflects wider reductions in the UK aid budget. Domestically, this Government’s programme of austerity—their cutting away of the welfare state and essential services, including the underfunding of our precious and world-renowned NHS—has meant that since 2011, increases in life expectancy have slowed after decades of steady improvement. Inequalities in life expectancy have recently widened: between some of the wealthiest and the more deprived areas of Liverpool, there is a difference in life expectancy of 20 years. One in three people in my great city are experiencing hunger at this moment. As constituency MPs, we are also witnessing at first hand the decimation of local primary care services. The Park View medical centre in West Derby is currently facing closure, a matter that I will be raising with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), in the House today.

I want to say a few words about the United Nations high-level meeting on tuberculosis, which the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has carried out significant work to combat globally. In 2021, 10 million people fell ill with TB and 1.6 million people died. TB diagnosis rates fell by 18%, which indicates not that cases are falling but, worryingly, that fewer cases are being detected by health systems. Alongside that, 450,000 new cases were diagnosed of multi-drug resistant TB—strains of TB that are resistant to modern antibiotics—yet multi-drug resistant TB treatment dropped by 17%, which indicates a reduction in diagnosis and detection.

Improving access to and quality of primary health care, including increasing the capacity, capability and equity of the health workforce, is crucial to delivering universal health care, reaching more people with TB and ensuring outbreaks of novel pathogens can be detected quickly. TB is both preventable and curable, yet people are still dying from TB because of a lack of political will and a consequent lack of funding to address the epidemic. Analysis also indicates a significant fall in TB diagnosis in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. As the World Health Organisation says, funding is less than half of what is needed.

Senior governmental engagement with the UN high- level meetings is vital to ensure that they are successful. Will the Minister please provide an update today on his engagement with the drafting of the political declarations for the three upcoming United Nations high-level meetings? Will he update us on his engagement with the TB high-level meeting process to date and outline what more the FCDO can do to support UK research and development, especially within the context of TB? Finally, can the Minister explain why the Government have taken the disastrous political decision to cut international aid spending and why they have relentlessly pursued an austerity programme domestically, all of which is profoundly impacting the health and wellbeing of millions of people in the UK and around the world and preventing progress towards the crucial United Nations sustainable development goals?

Violence in the West Bank

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I have said, we have seen the violent activity today on our TVs and we call on the Israeli Defence Forces and the Israeli Government to demonstrate the restraint that is required to prioritise the protection of civilians and ensure that we can see both medical support get into the Jenin camp and de-escalation of the violence as soon as possible.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

I wish to pass on my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) for raising this issue today. I will give the Minister one more chance before we end this urgent question: can she set out with far, far greater clarity than she has done so far what action the Government will take as president of the UN Security Council to ensure that Israel adheres to international law and that its leaders are held accountable?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I set out earlier this week, the Foreign Secretary spoke to the Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, on 26 June and to Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayyeh on 16 June. Such conversations are going on day after day. Lord Ahmad will be able to give an update on his conversations later on in the day in the other place.

Hunger: East Africa and the Horn of Africa

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for securing this hugely important debate. I declare that I took part in a cross-party visit to Kenya in January, and the details are in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

As we have heard from the powerful contributions this morning, the horn of Africa has experienced one of the longest and most severe droughts on record. Some 46 million people in the region urgently need food assistance, and more than 16.2 million people cannot access sufficient water. Those numbers are absolutely staggering. The persistent droughts and severe flooding are the result of climate change, and the cause of mass displacement and loss of life. The situation has been compounded by the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine, which caused prices for wheat, oil and fuel to skyrocket, rising by 300% in March 2022. Some 4.5 million people are now refugees as a result of the crisis, and 12.7 million are internally displaced. The drought has damaged people’s ability to grow crops, raise livestock and buy food, and 9.5 million livestock have died across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia alone. It is catastrophic.

In January of this year I joined a cross-party delegation that visited Marsabit, Kenya, where the crisis is rapidly increasing in severity. I would like to place on the record my thanks to CAFOD and everybody involved in that tremendous visit. Kenya declared a national disaster in September 2021 because of the drought, and UN figures estimate that the number of people affected by drought-driven hunger has increased from 1.4 million to 4.1 million in the last year. The fifth successive below-average rainy season has resulted in below-average crop production, poor livestock conditions and higher exposure to livestock diseases. I saw all of that when I went there. In turn, it has led to the loss of livelihoods and assets, and has increased food insecurity and malnutrition.

The drought has also had a devastating impact on children’s learning. Thousands of pupils have had to drop out of school due to the impact of food insecurity and climate-induced displacement. I will never forget the sights I witnessed, nor the magnificent fortitude of the people I met in Marsabit: the mothers who were distraught about how the crisis was threatening the education and futures of their children; the camels dying on the side of the road due to the unprecedented drought; and the communities decimated, with their standard of living disappearing before their eyes because of the loss of livestock.

I also saw how investment in people—in this case, water wells supplied by CAFOD—can transform and help the pastoralists to survive the drought and ensure they remain a key part of the future of Kenya, where they make up a fifth of the country. If Kenya loses those people and livestock, it poses an existential threat to the social and economic fortunes of the country and, indeed, of Africa.

As Action Against Hunger said in its briefing for this debate, in reality, millions of people are facing hunger and malnutrition and are losing their livelihoods due to a lack of political will to act. That includes the political will of this Government. I close my contribution by asking the Minister why the £156 million of funding committed by the UK in 2022-23 was only 20% of the amount committed to the region in 2017. Given the severity of the crisis we see before our eyes, I press the Minister to urgently increase funding now, for all the reasons that have been spoken so eloquently about today. Crucially, the Minister must ensure that the funding reaches local-led initiatives that have local knowledge and understand the short and long-term needs of the community. That is absolutely vital.

Furthermore, will the Minister commit to reinstating the aid budget to 0.7% of GDP as soon as possible? In addition to that immediate support, I urge the Minister to consult representatives from across the region to discuss what is needed to prepare for the future crisis, as well as long-term resilience building programmes, including climate adaptation, which is crucial for everybody.

Regarding the climate emergency, I am deeply concerned that the UK Government are yet to show the ambition required to avoid worsening catastrophic climate impacts. There needs to be an immediate change in direction to deliver on reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The UK must deliver additional funding for loss and damages caused by our contribution to the climate emergency.

The crisis across east Africa is now of immense proportions. As Action Against Hunger has said, famine is not a singular event but the result of a series of shocks that accumulate over time. With each shock, communities become less able to cope and another famine becomes more likely to occur. The UK need to provide immediate support as part of the urgent humanitarian response, as well as long-term support to prevent future crises and climate-driven displacement and that builds resilience in communities. I urge the Government to act with urgency.