Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), on securing this debate and the powerful way in which she has introduced it. I apologise to hon. Members, the shadow Minister and the Minister: I must get back to my constituency for an engagement later this afternoon, so depending on how long this debate goes on for, I may not be able to stay for the winding-up speeches. I will ask the Minister some questions, and I will avidly read his replies to them in Hansard.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, graphically laid out the nightmare that has been unfolding in Gaza—a nightmare that, frankly, we knew was coming. Back in 2012, the United Nations said that life in Gaza would be unliveable by 2020 because of the conditions that my hon. Friend described, but Robert Piper, the UN co-ordinator for humanitarian aid and development activities, says:

“that unliveability threshold has been passed quite a long time ago.”

That is the reality of living in Gaza today.

I want to ask the Minister about the UK’s response to that humanitarian crisis, but before I do, I remind hon. Members that perhaps the greatest humanitarian issue of all is the right to life. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured since 30 March, most from the use of live fire by the Israeli military. I will press the Minister on the accountability for those deaths and injuries.

The Minister knows—my hon. Friend repeated this point—of the widespread concern in the House over the United Kingdom’s failure last Friday to support the creation of an independent commission of inquiry by the United Nations Human Rights Council. What is the UK’s position on the HRC’s inquiry, now that it has been set up? Does the United Kingdom now accept the collective decision to create that body, even though it disagreed with it? Will it get behind and support that inquiry, and urge Israel to co-operate with it? If not, is the Minister saying that there is an obligation on member states to get behind collective decisions by the HRC and other UN bodies only if states happen to agree with them? If so, is that right reserved to the United Kingdom, or does he expect all states to exercise it?

Israel announced that it will conduct its own inquiry into the events in Gaza, as my hon. Friend said. Answering the urgent question on Monday, the Minister said that if such an inquiry

“is done solely by the Israeli legislative and judicial system, it is unlikely to carry the sort of confidence that the international community is looking for.”

He was not kidding about that. The United Nations commission of inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict said in 2015 that Israel has a

“lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable”.

B’Tselem, the respected Israeli human rights organisation, said:

“The military’s announcement that the general staff investigation mechanism led by Brig. Gen. Motti Baruch will look into the incidents in which Palestinians were killed, focusing on civilian deaths, is pure propaganda, intended—among other things—to prevent an independent international investigation.”

To address those concerns, which the Minister seems to understand are out there, he told the House on Monday that he believes that the Israeli inquiry

“must have an international element to it.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 578.]

“Must” was used. Has that been put to the Israeli Government? If the Israeli Government accept that there should—must—be an independent international element to the inquiry, what mechanisms does the Minister think should be put in place to monitor that international element, to ensure that it provides transparency and independence, rather than a fig leaf for an “inquiry” that, in reality, is anything but?

What will be the UK’s response if Israel refuses that independent international element? Will the United Kingdom say at that stage that all we are left with is the HRC inquiry, and that we will get behind it? Will the UK argue proactively for another international mechanism? If so, what will that mechanism be? Or will the reality be that, if Israel says no to that international element, and the United Kingdom, United States and Israel absent themselves from the HRC inquiry, accountability will just go by the board? That would underline both what B’Tselem said about the recent events—that Israel is finding a way of avoiding accountability—and what the UN commission of inquiry in 2014 said, with this being another example of Israel’s lamentable record of holding wrongdoers to account. The difference will be that this time, the United Kingdom would be complicit in that process.

The second area of accountability on which I will question the Minister is arms sales. In the past two years, export licences to Israel have been provided for categories of arms and arms components including sniper and assault rifles, pistols, weapon sights, targeting equipment, ammunition for small arms and grenades, smoke canisters, tanks, combat and military helicopters, military support and combat aircraft and civil riot control protection equipment. The consolidated arms export criteria, under which the UK operates, say that licences should not be granted if there is a serious risk that arms or arms components will be used for

“internal repression or in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law”,

and that the need

“not to affect adversely regional stability in any significant way”

must be considered.

There is widespread concern about whether UK-supplied weapons or components have been used in Gaza. I raised the subject in a written question to the Minister before last week’s events. He told me in his reply that the Government

“do not collect data on the use of equipment after sale.”

I asked the Minister for clarification of that on 15 May, and he told me that thorough risk assessments are undertaken prior to the granting of licences, and that in the light of recent difficulties in Gaza,

“we have looked at all extant licences in relation to Israel.”

He went on to say that

“we have no information to suggest that UK-supplied equipment has been used against protesters.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 127.]

I would like clarity from the Minister on that latter point. Is he saying that weapons or weapons components exported from the UK being used in the recent events in Gaza would constitute a breach of the consolidated criteria? I am also unclear about the Minister’s saying that “extant licences” have been looked at. Is he saying that Ministers have looked to see if any new orders are likely for items covered by those licences, but with no concern about what arms already supplied have been used for? Or is he saying that he is making inquiries about the uses of items already supplied to inform decisions about future licences?

If it is the latter, how is he making those inquiries? Is it simply a question of asking Israel if arms or arms components exported there from the UK have been used in Gaza, or are any other checks being undertaken? I ask because in 2009 the Foreign Office decided that because of misleading statements made by the Israeli Government about such matters, it would no longer regard their word as reliable or sufficient to decide whether to grant an arms export licence. Has the Foreign Office changed its mind about that? Does it now see Israel’s word about the uses to which it puts arms and arms components imports from the UK as reliable enough? If so, what has changed to give the UK more confidence in that word? If the UK still does not see assurances from the Israeli Government as sufficient, what other checks are in place?

Before I close, I will say a couple of words about the UK’s response to the humanitarian crisis that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, described. I was encouraged by the Minister’s commitment last week, when he said he was calling on the special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations

“to bring forward proposals to address the situation in Gaza.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 138.]

I would be grateful if the Minister outlined whether our Government will make any recommendations to go with that call, and if so, what they will be. Will he engage with the Quartet on its proposal to address the water and electricity crisis in Gaza? I would also be interested to hear from the Minister on the likelihood of support for engagement with those processes from other international parties, including Israel.

To follow up on that, the Minister will be aware that in March the White House held a summit on Gaza that UK officials attended, and very little information has come out about that, so I would be grateful if he could outline whether any plan or proposals were discussed at the summit and what, if anything, is likely to come out of it.

I would like to add to the questions that my hon. Friend put to the Minister about the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs humanitarian fund. Last year, £1.9 million was donated to that fund through the UN Children’s Fund. That has been supporting up to 1 million people in Gaza by providing clean water and rehabilitating sanitation facilities. I appreciate the efforts that the Minister put into securing that money.

However, the UN is now calling for an urgent replenishment of the humanitarian fund, because of the deteriorating situation in Gaza—a situation made worse by the cut in funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency from the United States. The pooled fund, which is being replenished now, is being supported by a range of countries, including Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland. However, we have still heard nothing from the UK Government about that. Despite their supporting the fund last year, responses from Ministers to written questions that I have tabled have given no indication at all about whether the Government plan to contribute to the fund this year. Given that the fund is addressing urgent needs in Gaza and that this Minister has said repeatedly—wearing, I guess, his Department for International Development hat, rather than his Foreign Office hat—that his Department stands ready to respond to spikes in need, will he accept that we are seeing a very obvious spike in need in Gaza, and will he give us a clear indication today of whether the UK Government will support the United Nations OCHA humanitarian fund?

I would be very grateful if the Minister could respond to the points I have made when he replies to the debate, and I again apologise if I am not able to be here to hear that reply.