Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause Debate
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Stephen Crabb
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Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause
Stephen Crabb Excerpts(12 months ago)
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Mr Mitchell
It is unwise and difficult for me to give granular advice on that specific situation from the Dispatch Box, but I will happily speak to the hon. Lady immediately afterwards and ensure that we do the best we can.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend’s remarks about increasing aid to Gaza and the Palestinian people at this time, and I note what he said about the care taken to ensure that British aid reaches its intended target, but given what we now know about the industrial scale of theft and misappropriation of aid in Gaza over the years, who is making sure on the ground right now that British aid is not being taken by Hamas terrorists?
Mr Mitchell
For aid in Gaza, we have not dealt with either the Palestinian Authority or the Hamas civil administration for many years, and we do everything we can to ensure that it gets through to the people who need it. He will have seen that, I think yesterday, a British aircraft delivered 4,500 blankets and 4,500 sleeping mats to al-Arish in Egypt. That was the fourth planeload. We will continue to ensure not only that we supply as much aid as we possibly can to meet the need, but that it gets to the right place as speedily as possible.