Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I rise to support the amendments in my name and amendment (h), and to highlight the failures of this King’s Speech to ensure that the Government uphold international humanitarian law.

Yusof and his two older siblings counted themselves lucky. Their dad, a radiographer at the local hospital in Khan Yunis, had installed solar panels at their house, so even when their neighbourhood lost power, they could still watch their favourite cartoons. That is what they were doing when an airstrike hit from Israel. Miraculously, Yusof’s brother Hamed was unharmed. His sister Jury was found in the rubble. She was injured, but alive. Yusof’s mother searched in vain for her youngest son. She went to the hospital, asking if anyone had seen her “handsome and curly-haired” boy. It was Yusof’s dad who found him. His body had been taken to the morgue. Yusof was seven years old when he was killed. His dream was to be a doctor when he grew up. On his final day, he ran and hugged his dad before he left for work. His dad recalled:

“Yusof kissed me and said goodbye”.

Yusof is one of the more than 4,600 children and more than 11,000 Palestinians of all ages who have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza. The World Health Organisation says that a Palestinian child is being killed every 10 minutes; Yusof was one of those. Behind every number we read and behind every horrifying statistic we hear, there were hopes and dreams just as real and just as valuable as yours and mine. I cannot believe that it has to be said, but it clearly does: Palestinian lives matter just as much as anyone else’s.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has now killed one in every 200 Palestinians in the besieged enclave. Hospitals, ambulances and refugee camps have been targeted. Premature babies in incubators—let me repeat that: premature babies in incubators—are dying because hospitals have run out of fuel. In the illegally occupied west bank, where Hamas are not in power, around 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or armed settlers. We could spend all day listing the horrors that the likes of the United Nations Secretary-General, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said amount to clear violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes.

The truth is that Israeli officials have been open about their intent. At the beginning of the assault, an Israeli military spokesperson said that the emphasis in bombing was on “damage…not accuracy.” A former head of the National Security Council said that the aim was to make Gaza

“a place where no human being can exist.”

This weekend an Israeli Government Minister said that the war would be “Gaza’s Nakba”, a reference to the 1948 catastrophe where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homelands and never allowed to return.

None of that is to downplay Hamas’s appalling killing of Israeli civilians. I have condemned that already and do so again today. I repeat the calls for the release of all hostages, but, as the UN Secretary General said, none of those crimes excuses what we have seen since. Unlike those crimes, Israel’s assault on Gaza has been done with the Government’s unequivocal support and complicity, and almost certainly with British-made arms—[Interruption.] I see smirking on the Government Front Bench; personally, I do not think it is a laughing matter. When the Government refuse to support a ceasefire, they give Israel the green light to continue its slaughter of innocent Palestinians. When they refuse to support a ceasefire, they are refusing to push back against Israeli politicians and policies that aim to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their lands.

I am utterly horrified that, after all that, Members of this House are still willing to give Israel the green light, proposing nothing more than humanitarian pauses. There is nothing humanitarian about letting children eat a little today only to bomb them tomorrow. The only humanitarian way forward is an immediate ceasefire, as has been recognised by everyone from the Pope to the President of France, as well as 76% of the British public, according to polling. To hon. Members across the House, I say this: the children killed in Gaza today could have been saved by a ceasefire agreed yesterday, so I urge and implore you on this. We will be remembered for this vote, so let us be on the right side of history and vote for a ceasefire.