Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh]

Each of us—every person in this world—has a fundamental human right to peaceful protest. Is it any wonder that ordinary people living in Gaza want to go and exercise that right, given the situation and the lives they are living?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is setting out a very powerful case for UK intervention. Does she also agree that the UK should lead the call to remove illegal blockades of goods into Gaza?

[Louise Haigh]

Yes. The illegal blockade and the continuing occupation of Gaza by the Israeli Government are a fundamental part of the issue facing Gaza.

If our Government are unwilling or unable to put pressure on the Israeli Government to ease some of the causes of the humanitarian situation, we have a responsibility to the Palestinian people to address some of the symptoms that I have laid out today. The Government have committed £1.9 million in funding to UNICEF through the humanitarian fund of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. However, answers to written questions suggest that the Government will not be renewing support to that fund. OCHA is renewing calls for urgent support for its humanitarian funds to meet the desperate humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip. Can the Minister commit to renewing support to that fund? The immediate medical needs in Gaza are dire, and the sheer number of injuries alone will require long-term support. It is surely unjustifiable to withdraw support at this time.

The recent mass-casualty event has only exacerbated a whole-system collapse in Gaza. As I mentioned earlier, I visited Israel and Palestine in February this year, with my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely). We were taken there by the excellent organisations the Council for Arab-British Understanding and Medical Aid for Palestine. We did not visit Gaza, but the situation there cast a long shadow across the rest of the country.

We visited Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem, a charitable hospital that provides healthcare to Palestinians, although they obviously struggle to access it because of restrictions on their travel as a result of checkpoints, the wall and the blockade of Gaza. We saw three newborn babies—triplets—born only days before. They were premature and tiny, in incubators and hooked up so that they could breathe properly. Their mother, a woman who had given birth to three babies only days before, was back in Gaza, having been ordered to leave East Jerusalem—part of Palestine, but annexed by Israel—because she was considered a security threat. She was separated from her newborn triplets.

We met a little boy who had a brain stem tumour and who was waiting to be operated on the next day. He was chatting away and laughing, blowing kisses at my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley and telling her that she was beautiful because she had rosy cheeks. There is an age restriction of 55 years on travel from Gaza, so his great-aunt was with him rather than his parents. He was being operated on the next day, and the surgeon was not hopeful about his chances. He was six years old.

The continued blockade of Gaza since 2005 and the restrictions on travel and trade have undeniably played their part in the horrific situation Gazans live in today. In 2012, the UN warned that Gaza would be unliveable by 2020. Unemployment is as high as 45% for men and 80% for women. At least 90% of the water is not fit to drink. The birth rate continues to increase, in the most overpopulated place on earth. Only 40% of the 12,000 houses demolished during the 2014 war have been rebuilt.

For the last three months, families in Gaza have been receiving around two to four hours of electricity per day. Gaza receives electricity from Israel, Egypt and a single power plant near Gaza City. Around 28 MW of electricity are provided to Gaza from Egypt every day, but there are frequent disruptions. The sole power plant in Gaza produces around 60 MW per day. Israel ordinarily provides around 120 MW per day to Gaza, but on 11 June last year Israel’s security cabinet made a decision to reduce the supply by 40%, significantly exacerbating an electricity crisis that has long impacted Palestinian residents of Gaza.

Gaza now has daily blackouts of 18 to 20 hours, meaning that patients who rely on life-saving medical equipment are put at risk on a daily basis, and hospitals generally cannot function at their full capacity to ensure the health and wellbeing of patients. Water desalination facilities have been severely impacted by the lack of electricity. The impact on the hygiene and public health of the population is severe and a matter of grave concern, as sewage water cannot be treated or pumped away from residential areas. Currently, around 80% of Gaza’s shoreline is polluted by untreated sewage, enabling the spread of waterborne diseases.

Is it any wonder, in these conditions, that what the former Prime Minister David Cameron called an “open-air prison” is a hotbed for extremism? The threats from the United States over funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency will inevitably mean that half the schools in Gaza funded by the UN will struggle, and children will be sent instead to Hamas-run schools. The humanitarian situation and Israel’s actions are Hamas’s best recruiting tools.

I know the Minister shares my concerns, but we need to step up. We cannot allow the desperate situation of Gazans to continue. Taking action will only serve to quell extremism and weaken Hamas. We need to hear a stronger, louder voice from the UK in the international community. We must bring pressure to bear on the Egyptian Government for their role. We must see UNRWA and OCHA properly funded and, yes, we must consider sanctions if international law continues to be flouted. Most importantly, we must ensure that the blockade is lifted and Gazans are allowed to travel, trade and have access to healthcare. If we do not do everything in our collective power to achieve that, the blood of many more Palestinians and Israelis will be on all our hands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

Our concern was about the resolution itself. We worked with other parties to see whether we could get a resolution that would be acceptable. I genuinely do not know whether it is possible to reopen that, because a decision seems to have been taken. If people were going to change the resolution, it would have been changed at the time.

Let me say this about what is happening now. The UK is not required formally to take any further action or position on the HRC-mandated inquiry until the final report is published, but as supporters of commissions of inquiry in general, we will encourage parties to engage constructively with the HRC and its mechanisms. At the same time, we will work to ensure that the commission of inquiry is as independent, transparent and balanced as possible in its approach.

[Rachael Maskell]

I really appreciate the Minister’s giving way on this point. We are in a really imperfect situation, and I think we all recognise that it will be impossible for all parties to have complete buy-in to any investigation. However, the investigation that is on the table is the closest we can currently get to an independent investigation into this dreadful situation, so surely we should give it more support. Although Israel can carry out its own investigation and that, too, should be considered at its conclusion, this independent investigation certainly requires the UK’s support at this time.

[Alistair Burt]

Well, I have said what I have said. We will encourage parties to engage, but we did not support the resolution, for the reasons I have given. As I said, the HRC’s relationship with Israel over the years makes it difficult for it to claim to be an independent sponsor. I understand that other nations do not see it that way, but if we want to get to the bottom of this situation, as in any inquiry, we need as much buy-in from as many of the parties as possible. If we know right from the beginning that we will not get that, it will be a false trail in the first place. As the hon. Lady says, there is nothing else there at present. Presumably, that is why the HRC has taken the line that it has taken. We disagree with it, but rather than leave it completely, we want to do exactly as we have indicated.

We have taken this issue directly to the Israeli authorities —that was one of the questions raised—and we will continue to do so. We will wait to see what the response is and what Israel has planned. I would be extremely surprised if Israel did not want to take matters forward in some way, but we will need to make those judgments as they come along. However, just because something imperfect is the only thing in town, that is no reason necessarily to back it if it will not work practically. That is why we have taken the view on the inquiry that we have.

Let me turn to Gaza. The restrictions imposed on movement and access to Gaza contribute significantly to the pressures that the Gazan people face. One of the questions asked by the hon. Member for Hammersmith was about what I thought about the demonstrations. I can only go off what we have—the diplomatic intelligence and everything that we get—and my sense is that it is a combination of those factors that colleagues have brought out. There is an inevitable frustration in Gaza, typified by so many of those comments, but there is a practical and realistic recognition of the politics of the situation and the dreadful combination of what happened last week, together with other events taking place elsewhere.

Colleagues have already spoken of the political incitement that was given during that time. My sense is that it is a terrible mixture of those things, and ultimately the only resolution of that is to take away all the seeds of such frustration. That can be done only with developments in Gaza as a first and urgent step, followed by the political process.