Palestinian Communities: Israeli Demolitions Debate
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Naz Shah
Main Page: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)Department Debates - View all Naz Shah's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Palestinian Communities: Israeli Demolitions
Naz Shah Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing this debate.
Given the time restrictions, I will not go through what I had written, but I will echo what my hon. Friend has said. This debate is not about Palestine and Israel and the religious side of things. It is really about the children of Palestine enjoying the same rights as the children across the wall. It is about the Oslo accords and the agreements that were supposed to be a tool to liberate the Palestinians and give them rights, but have been used as a method to strangulate the Palestinians. That method has been used through jurisdiction, through the changes of law and through the application of planning processes, whereby less than 2% of planning applications have been granted in that area.
This is not the first time Israel has done this: the House needs to realise that Israel—this so-called thriving democracy—is the only country that continues to commit acts of war. That is what the demolition of settlements is. It breaches international law; it is a war crime. That is what people call it—that is what Amnesty International is calling it—and that is what we need to recognise. What Israel is committing is a war crime. These are children who will be displaced from their families in the middle of winter with nowhere to go. It is an illegal act.
How much longer can we carry on just having these debates, trying to talk about it, but nothing is done? What is the Minister going to do when he leaves this debate? Will he put pressure on Israel to stop the demolition of Susiya? Will he give hope to those children who will not have a roof over their heads, despite the fact that these are their homes, not Israel’s?