Gaza: Healthcare System Support

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I spent much of my childhood in a hospital bed. I did not know then that most of my surgeon’s family had been murdered at Auschwitz. But I am sure that, were he alive today, he would be as horrified as I am by the tragedy that has befallen the people of Israel and of Gaza since Hamas’s barbaric and depraved invasion from unoccupied Gaza in 2023.

Of course, the international community must do everything it can to help rebuild the hospitals in Gaza, whose sacrosanct position has been consistently violated, as we have already heard, by Hamas in defiance of international law. For it is their cynical cowardice, in turning hospitals into terror command centres, that has put patients, their families and medical personnel in harm’s way.

So, to support the healthcare system of Gaza must mean protecting it from Hamas. Never again can Hamas be allowed to perpetrate such crimes against the Palestinian people. I ask the Minister to confirm that His Majesty’s Government will prioritise ensuring Hamas respects and upholds international law, because unless and until that happens, no amount of support from us will remove the threat posed by Hamas to the security and viability of the Gaza healthcare system and, ultimately, to its people.