Israel and Gaza

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, as an Answer to an Urgent Question in the other place today, my colleague there gave the following response:

“The whole House will be gravely concerned about the desperate situation in Gaza. It cannot continue and we are deploying all our diplomatic resources, including at the United Nations, to help find a viable solution.

The scale of civilian deaths and displacement in Gaza is shocking. I was particularly disturbed to hear about the situation of civilians trapped in the Holy Family Church complex in Gaza City, the lack of water and food, and reports of sniper fire causing civilian deaths inside the complex. Although Israel has the right to defend itself against terror, restore its security and bring the hostages home, it must abide by international law and take all possible measures to protect civilians.

No one wants to see this conflict go on a moment longer than necessary; we recognise the sheer scale of the suffering and are appalled at the impacts on civilians. What we urgently need are more humanitarian pauses to get all the hostages out and life-saving aid in. We welcome the recent opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing to help achieve this, but it is not enough. Our immediate priorities are to secure the release of British hostages, to show solidarity with Israel in defending itself against Hamas while complying with international humanitarian law, and to call for such pauses—both at the UN and directly with Israel—to ensure that emergency aid can be distributed in Gaza, including fuel, water and medicine.

The Foreign Secretary will discuss the situation in Gaza with regional leaders this week in his visit to Egypt and Jordan. The Government have recently announced an extra £30 million of British aid, tripling the UK’s aid budget for the Occupied Palestinian Territories this financial year. To date, we have delivered 74 tonnes of aid, but there is still more to do: casualty numbers are far too high and we are calling on Hamas to release each and every kidnapped hostage. We are also actively exploring other routes for aid into Gaza, including maritime options.

Of course, as both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have said, ultimately this must end. We of course want to see an end to the fighting, but this must be a sustainable ceasefire, meaning that Hamas must stop launching rockets into Israel and release the hostages. Over 130 hostages are still unaccounted for. They must be released immediately and returned to their families. To achieve long-term peace in the Middle East, a viable two-state solution is needed. Leaving Hamas in power in Gaza would be a permanent roadblock on the path to this. No one can be expected to live along- side a terrorist organisation committed to its destruction and dedicated to repeating those attacks”.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. As the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe worsens in Gaza, it is vital that the United Kingdom helps to build the conditions for a sustainable ceasefire—and that includes our work on the United Nations Security Council. I know that Ministers, including the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, have been working hard to find a text which can be agreed on that can lead to a cessation of violence and the release of hostages. While the outcome of the Security Council deliberations will not be known until later today, the mobilising of humanitarian support must be stepped up. Andrew Mitchell said in the other place that we will increase support for UNRWA directly into Gaza which, he said, now has US backing. Can the Minister give us more details of this and of how we are working with all UN agencies to get aid into Gaza?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. He is right that things are at a crucial stage at the Security Council. We are expecting a vote at approximately 5 pm our time and are working really hard to make sure that we have a text that can be agreed on. It is involving all the diplomatic skills we have at hand. We will make sure that we keep the House informed on the progress of that and will explain the text we have achieved.

The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise humanitarian support. Some £10 million to support Palestinian refugees has been committed at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. In addition, £150 million has been committed to support vulnerable Syrians and £70 million has been contributed to the UNHCR. A whole range of different schemes have been adopted in the region, but we have tripled our particular support to those in Gaza to make sure that we are supporting them. The humanitarian aid we want to see delivered has a number of potential routes in. One, which I mentioned earlier, was a maritime option, but that of course requires the agreement of both Israel and Hamas. We are also investigating a cross-land route via Jordan through Israel through to the Kerem Shalom crossing. These are complicated issues to negotiate, and we will continue to keep the House informed on our progress.