Gaza: Healthcare System Support

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, news of a potential ceasefire would indeed be a great relief for both sides, though we will now be going into a sort of truth and reconciliation phase in which blame will be laid on one or other party, and we will see Hamas’s very successful propaganda laid out for the BBC and others to swallow without question.

I want to head off some of that with a few facts. When we hear talk of hospitals being destroyed, I remind noble Lords that Israel built 13 field hospitals in Gaza to treat the Palestinians. It has sent hundreds of Gazan patients not only to Israel’s hospitals but to hospitals in other countries and managed the polio vaccination programme for all the children in Gaza. That seem to have slipped by the BBC’s balanced reporting.

Israel evacuated the patients of Kamal Adwan hospital, but it was not the patients or staff who were killing Israeli soldiers nearby—nine last weekend alone. It was Hamas terrorists who were shooting from tunnels under the hospital—tunnels to which Hamas has always denied access to its own people. Remember that, while Israel builds shelters for its population, Hamas builds huge tunnels for itself to which it denies access to its women and children so that it can cynically use them in the front line of its battles. This is where Hamas stores the food and medicines delivered from Israel that it purloins and sells at exorbitant prices to its deprived citizens.

There has been some talk of the role of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Adwan hospital. Israel now seems to have evidence that not only is he a key member of Hamas, he may even have taken part in the 7 October terrorist attack. It is little wonder that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are turning against Hamas as they understand what horrific results Hamas has inflicted on them.