Israel and Palestine Debate
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Kim Johnson
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Israel and Palestine
Kim Johnson Excerpts(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. I thank the petitioners for bringing the debate here today. I want to start by condemning the atrocities that took place on 7 October and by calling for the immediate release of the hostages. However, since the atrocities on 7 October, the world has watched as massacres, bombardments, starvation and communal punishment continue to be levelled against innocent Palestinian civilians. Homes, schools and hospitals have turned into rubble. The collective punishment of the Palestinian people is a crime against humanity and in violation of international humanitarian law. Israel’s refusal to allow water, fuel, electricity, food and medical supplies to reach people under unprecedented assault is unjustifiable.
Save the Children has said that if the children in Gaza
“are not killed by the bombardments, they will be killed by hunger. If they are not killed by hunger, they will be killed by disease.”
One Palestinian dies every five minutes, but that could have been averted if the US and the UK had voted in favour of the Security Council resolution for a ceasefire. That would have ended the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the mass displacement of Gazans towards the south of the strip, which is threatening to push them into the Sinai, in the biggest land grab and ethnic cleansing since the original Nakba in 1948.
A child who is 16 years old in Gaza today will have known five successive bombing campaigns and spent their entire life under blockade. The sheer level of trauma, pain and grief that they have already experienced is almost unspeakable. All of us who bear witness to these crimes have a duty to speak up, and those of us with the privilege of power have a duty to do everything humanly possible to end them.
This weekend, traumatising images that emerged from Jabalia refugee camp were widely reported. Palestinian men were stripped naked, bound and blindfolded by Israeli forces, invoking images from some of the darkest passages of our history. The International Federation of Journalists, working closely with the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, has verified that at least 70 journalists have been killed in the violence, with many others missing and feared dead. It has said that journalists are dying at four times the rate of the general population. These journalists are all that stands between the truth and a total media blackout in Gaza; they should never be a target, yet the numbers reveal a very concerning picture.
I echo the calls from the National Union of Journalists to pay tribute to the bravery of journalists in Gaza and to their commitment to their work. Without them, we would not be able to hold the Israeli Government to account for the horrors unfolding in Gaza.
Time and again, we have heard from Ministers that they are, in no uncertain terms, pushing Israel to take precautions, to act within the confines of international humanitarian law and to show restraint and care for civilian infrastructure and life. However, on his media round this morning, the Defence Secretary failed to condemn the detention of Palestinian children in military prisons.
Kim Johnson
No, I am sorry. I am going to make some progress.
We know that that will not happen without meaningful international action to ensure that Israel cannot continue to act with impunity. The UN Secretary-General has invoked article 99 of the founding UN charter, formally warning the Security Council of the global threat from the attack on Gaza. A ceasefire is the bare minimum we must demand, yet our Government have failed in their humanity. How many more innocent Palestinians have to die before the leadership of this country takes action?
To conclude, our Government urgently need to move towards a permanent ceasefire. We must also go further and take bold steps to end the cycle of violence, including the indiscriminate killings of Palestinians in the west bank by right-wing extremist settlers. The ICC must investigate potential war crimes by all parties and bring to justice those who are found guilty. History will not judge kindly those who looked away. We must do everything in our power to bring these atrocities to an urgent end with a permanent ceasefire.