Hamas Attacks: First Anniversary

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Jon Pearce

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jon Pearce]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and could not agree more with his experience of the kibbutz. In July 2023 I visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which was founded by the Mizrahi refugees from Morocco and Egypt in 1951. The kibbutz is so close to Gaza that it is possible to hear the mosques’ call to prayer. Over lunch with the kibbutzniks, they told us about the ever-present danger of rocket attacks and the terror tunnels that Hamas had attempted to dig nearby. They also spoke of their compassion for the ordinary people of Gaza just a couple of miles away.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

I also visited Kfar Aza just a few weeks before the horrific attacks by Hamas on 7 October. The visit had a profound impact on me, especially in the light of what followed just a few short weeks later. I listened to Emily Damari’s mum Mandy at the memorial in Hyde park yesterday, pleading with us all who were present to do something to help her daughter. As a mum to an Emily, who is exactly the same age as her Emily will be now, I am here tonight to ask if my hon. Friend will join me in pleading with the Minister and our Government to work night and day to ensure that Emily and the other 100 hostages still being held in unimaginable horror in Gaza are released as soon as humanly possible.

[Jon Pearce]

I join my hon. Friend’s call for the hostages to be returned at the soonest possible opportunity.

The kibbutzniks we spoke to used to stage an annual festival in which they would gather to fly kites adorned with the words “peace”, “shalom” and “salam” at the nearby border. Last year, the annual kite festival was set for Saturday 7 October. As always, the Kutz family, whose brainchild the festival was, had prepared the kites, but there were no kites or messages of hope and peace that dark day. Instead, Aviv Kutz, his wife Livnat and his teenager children Rotem, Yonatan and Yiftach were murdered in their home by Hamas terrorists. They were found in a bed, with Aviv’s arms around his wife and children. Their unflown kites were found nearby. The family were among more than 60 kibbutz residents who were massacred that day. This has been a horrifying and harrowing year of suffering. As many have said, we must do all we can to bring the fighting to an end as quickly as possible, with the hostages home from Gaza, aid into Gaza and a path to a long-term and sustainable peace.

The impact of that terrible day has been felt 2,000 miles away in what the Prime Minister has rightly described as the rise of vile hatred in our own communities. Antisemitic incidents have reached their highest total. Nearly seven in 10 British Jews report that they are less likely to show visible signs of Judaism. Nearly half say that they have considered leaving the UK because of antisemitism. Jewish children are unable to wear their uniforms on their way to school. Jewish students are intimidated on their campuses. Jewish places of worship are defaced and graffitied. This is intolerable in modern Britain.

I know that a number of Front Benchers would have wished to speak in this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), who have been steadfast in their support throughout the last year. I am sure that the whole House will join me in saying that we stand with and by our Jewish fellow citizens in the face of this hatred. The 7 October atrocities showed humanity at its worst, exposing once again what Holocaust survivor Sam Kaltman termed the thin and fragile “veneer of civilisation”. But, as the late Martin Gilbert argued, even on the darkest days there are sparks of light.