Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that a Gaza donor conference takes place in the near future; and what additional steps she has taken to (a) provide support for Palestinian children and (b) raise the importance of such support with her international counterparts.

The Cairo Conference for Reconstructing Gaza took place on 12 October. The UK pledged £20m for early recovery interventions including disposal of unexploded ordnance, rubble clearance programmes and reconstructive surgery for those injured in the conflict. The United Nations Children’s Fund has estimated that nearly 400,000 children in Gaza are in urgent need of psychological support; DFID’s Rapid Response Facility has supported the provision of health and psycho-social care for those affected, and we continue to support the UN Relief and Works Agency which has deployed counsellors to all Gaza shelters to mitigate the impact of psychological trauma. We regularly raise the importance of such support with international counterparts, as well as the need for a durable ceasefire in Gaza that addresses all of the underlying issues.