Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Grahame Morris]

Precisely. I am grateful for that contribution, and I hope that the Minister will respond positively and give us some good news about the potential for progress on a lasting settlement and relief for the hardship of those people.

Gaza’s unemployment rate is almost 50%, which is the world’s highest, while 97% of households lack access to clean drinking water. There has been a threefold increase of diarrhoea among under-threes, and in contrast to the global improvement in infant mortality the rate in Gaza has actually stagnated for a decade. Mains electricity is available for only four or five hours a day—less under certain circumstances—which undermines vital services and severely inhibits people’s everyday lives and wellbeing. Some 109 million litres of waste water is released into the sea every day, and almost the whole of the Gaza coastline is contaminated.

I know that the Minister shares my concerns, but we need to do more. We need to step up to the plate for the Gazans. We cannot allow the desperate situation of these innocent people to continue. Taking no action will be counterproductive. It will simply strengthen the position of those who advocate extremism. We need to hear a stronger voice from the UK in the international community.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making important points about the desperate humanitarian conditions faced by Gazans. However, unless he is willing to mention that the disruption to energy supplies for Gazans has much to do with the ongoing dispute between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the west bank, that the Rafah crossing is hardly ever opened to allow humanitarian supplies in from Egypt, or that Hamas runs Gaza with an iron fist and is guilty of numerous counts of misappropriating aid, we will not get the balanced discussion that this important issue needs.

[Grahame Morris]

We need an understanding of the situation and the appalling hardships faced. Let us not forget that Israel has obligations under international law and under the fourth Geneva convention. It must honour those commitments, and if it does not the international community must take action.

On our roles and responsibilities, I have seen at first hand the vital work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. I hope that the Minister gives us something positive in his comments today, because we need to ensure that those organisations are properly funded. I believe that we must consider sanctions against Israel if international law continues to be flouted. Most importantly, we need to ensure that the blockade is lifted and Gazans are allowed to travel, trade and have access to healthcare. If we do not do everything in our power, and the Government do not do everything in their power to achieve peace, the blood of many more people will be on our hands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend makes the point that Israeli hospitals treat citizens from Gaza. Is he aware that some of the people who have been treated have included senior Hamas operatives and members of their families, and their children?

[Paul Masterton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which is a good one. Senior officials in Hamas are always too ready to allow access to those high standards of healthcare in Israel, although they seek to block it for their own citizens.

The moments in that Tel Aviv hospital gave me hope that peace could be achieved, because Palestinians and Israelis worked together there as equals with mutual respect. When we debate the disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza we cannot ignore the role of Hamas, as others have sought to do. What struck me when I was in the west bank and met the Palestinian chief negotiator was the fact that his overriding emotion was not frustration, anger or upset; instead there was a sense of despondency and guilt, because he keenly felt that the loss of the Gaza elections to Hamas in 2006, the battle of Gaza in 2007 and the political violence of 2009, when opponents of Hamas were tortured, shot and thrown off buildings, have created an insurmountable obstacle to peace and left the innocent people of Gaza at the mercy of an authoritarian militant jihadi regime.