Gaza

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

There is a good argument for that, and one of our hon. Friends who has now left the Chamber gave an alleged instance of this earlier. The Israeli Government argue that Hamas in effect uses civilians as shields—that one of the reasons for civilian casualties is that rockets are launched deliberately from within heavily populated areas, Gaza itself being a very densely populated area. It is in the nature of the conflict that that happens and that civilians are therefore in the front line, and Hamas bears responsibility for that.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

No Member of the House can fail to be horrified by the escalation of violence on both sides and by what appears to be the disproportionate response of Israel. More than 200 of my constituents have written to me to ask me to ask the Foreign Secretary what action he has taken to help to secure a ceasefire and, to echo the words of the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), what action he will take to help end illegal settlement and to help to continue the economic development in Palestine.

[Mr Hague]

I will not repeat everything I said in my earlier statement, but I hope that the hon. Lady will send to her constituents what I said about everything that the UK has done in recent days to promote a ceasefire—the work we have been doing at the UN Security Council and in the discussions I have had with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and many Arab nations to help bring about an agreed ceasefire. I also gave examples in my statement of what we are doing to help the economic development and state-building of Palestinians. The UK is one of the largest donors in the world to that, and we will continue that effort.