Middle East

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I thank my hon. Friend for what she says in relation to children. Of course, there are not just the children who have died as a result of famine, which is horrific, but many thousands of children who are malnourished. Anyone who knows anything about education and children will know that if you malnourish children, you affect outcomes for them as they get older and move towards adulthood. That is why this is so horrific and disastrous for the consequences of peace and the outcomes that we want to see. I have heard what she said about sanctions.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

The Foreign Secretary said that

“we can and must be precise with our language”.

I stand here 23 months after the atrocities of 7 October—completely unforgivable atrocities against civilians and other innocent people—and I join in his call for all hostages to be released. However, since 8 October 2023, Israel has been extremely precise in its language about what it was going to do in response to 7 October. Its playbook of war crime, genocide, murder, starvation, water blockages, power cuts and bombing hospitals and schools was laid out in extreme detail for all of us to see. Nobody on this planet can say we did not know. Over the 23 months, nothing this Government have done has prevented Israel from enacting its line-by-line extermination plan. It does not want two states between Palestine and Israel. It actually does not care about the lives of the remaining hostages. What will this Government do to help Israel see sense and save lives, both the hostages and the Palestinians?

[Mr Lammy]

I do think it is important that the hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding his strength of feeling, recognises that Israel is a complex place of many opinions. He will have found disputes, certainly from this Government but I think from many people in this Chamber, on the direction of travel that the Netanyahu Government have set themselves, and the extremists in that Government who have taken them on a certain path. I think that is an important qualification. We are doing all we can, but he will recognise that we do that with partners, seeking to exert leverage, and that is why we have made the decisions that we have most recently.