Middle East

Stephen Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Half a million people in Gaza have received essential healthcare as a result of UK funding, and it was very important to support UK-Med when we came into office. Over 600,000 young people in Gaza have received food as a result of our efforts, but there is a tremendous amount to do, as my hon. Friend knows. The threat to UNRWA could thwart these efforts in the coming days. It is about how we get the number of truckloads up, how we deliver security for the Gazan people and how people can return to their homes, which is now the hope. But she will understand that many of them are returning to rubble. Actually, they are returning to camps in the surrounds of their homes, and they will need aid and support for many, many years, and probably for decades to come.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

As we hope for this ceasefire deal and for the release of the hostages, we continue to mourn all of those who have been killed since the vicious terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023. In that respect, my mind is very much with the six little babies who did not see this proposal because they froze to death in Gaza just a few short weeks ago. The collective punishment of the Palestinian people will not be forgotten by history, just as all of those who sat silent, and who encouraged and armed extremists in the Israeli Government, will be judged by history. The ceasefire deal is not yet certain; it has been widely reported this morning that the Israeli Cabinet has not yet signed it off. Can the Secretary of State please elaborate on what the consequences would be if either Hamas or, indeed, the Israeli Government reneged on this deal?

[Mr Lammy]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that the Labour party has always stressed the seriousness of Israel’s security in the toughest of neighbourhoods, because Iran and its proxies have so much malign intent. But we have always insisted that what it does must be within international humanitarian law, and we have raised our concerns at every turn when we have felt that it is being breached. As the Israeli Cabinet meets to approve the deal at this most serious of moments, it is my sincere hope that they hear what President-elect Trump has said about his expectations of this deal, that they hear the expectations of this united House of Commons, and that they do the right thing.