Hamas Attacks: First Anniversary

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Jon Pearce

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jon Pearce]

I agree with the hon. Member that the courage of the families of the hostages is remarkable. So many in the House will have spoken to those families. Their strength and resolve is extraordinary and empowers all the rest of us.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous with his time in this really important Adjournment debate. I, too, had the opportunity to meet Mandy Damari, who wanted our Government to acknowledge that her daughter Emily is a British citizen and requires the support of her Government to do everything they can to allow for her release as a hostage.

[Jon Pearce]

I very much thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I, too, have spoken to Mandy, and she was clear that her daughter is a British citizen. There are four other individuals being held hostage who are connected to Britain, and they also need to come home as soon as possible.

I want to touch on some of the other groups from that day: the group of pensioners on a day trip in the Dead sea who were gunned down in Sderot after their minivan developed a flat tyre; the young partygoers massacred at the Supernova music festival, some of whom, like many women elsewhere that day, were subjected to

“unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality”,

according to the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict; and the 12-year-old British-Israeli twins Yanni and Liel, who were murdered alongside their great aunt and their grandfather at Kibbutz Be’eri. So little of Liel’s body was recovered that some of her toys were buried instead. Liel and Yanni were two of the 15 Britons murdered on 7 October.