Gaza Border Violence

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I hope that I have tried to demonstrate that the United Kingdom takes the path that my hon. Friend would suggest is the appropriate one to deal with the tragedies of yesterday and to look towards a better future.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Israel rightly uses security as a reason to continue the blockade in Gaza. While I was over there recently, I met a mother who had just given birth to triplets, but she was to be removed from the hospital in Jerusalem where she was receiving care because she was a security risk. A woman who has just given birth is not a security risk to be removed from her children; but as soon as somebody removed my babies, I would certainly become one. What are the Government going to do to ensure that people seeking desperate healthcare outside Gaza—in Jerusalem—are able to get it?

[Alistair Burt]

I have two responses to the hon. Lady. First, the human circumstances that she describes take us back to comments made earlier by colleagues on both sides of the House about the depth of resentment built up over a lengthy period due to the way in which all this has been handled. We have talked about the ability of politics to have divided and separated people and build them into situations where they cannot see one another as anything but an enemy. That is at the root and heart of this issue. Secondly, on the specific aspect of the hon. Lady’s question, we do raise with the Israeli authorities the subject of movement for medical help, but it should also be recognised that there are many occasions when that help is given. That is an undisclosed part of the relationship between the two.