LABOUR have failed to say whether they believe their policy of continuing to arm the Israeli military will be defensible as “moral and legal” in a year’s time.
Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer was challenged on Britain’s continued support for Israel, despite dire warnings from the UN this week that the aid situation in Palestine is at “breaking point” after Israeli attacks on humanitarian relief workers.
Israeli soldiers fired 16 rounds at a clearly marked UN convoy at a checkpoint on Sunday, according to Tom Fletcher, the organisation’s under secretary for humanitarian affairs.
Responding to a question in the Commons on the situation in northern Gaza, Falconer said that the UK Government “condemns Israel’s restriction on aid in the strongest terms” and said this was a “man-made crisis”.
SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said that last year, the then-foreign secretary David Cameron had told the foreign affairs committee that the conflict was “effectively over” in northern Gaza.
O’Hara said: “Unfortunately, no one seems to have told Tel Aviv because there are still babies freezing to death and the last hospital has been destroyed.”
The SNP MP said that while the government had changed in the intervening 12 months, “the UK’s complicity in the mass killing of Palestinians remains as it has been for the past year”.
He asked: “Given that nothing has changed, does the minister genuinely believe that in another year from now, he’ll be able to say that continuing to arm the IDF was both moral and legal?
Falconer replied: “If words are to have meaning, clearly our policy is different those on the benches opposite, as I think they accept. I do not want to see this conflict to continue for another year.
“The Palestinians cannot wait, we are doing everything we can, we have been calling for an immediate ceasefire since we became the government, we will continue to take steps to try and advance that.”
Earlier, the minister had said that Israeli airstrikes on the designated “humanitarian zone” in Gaza had proven there were “no safe spaces left for civilians”.
He added: “Reports of up to eight children having died from cold weather conditions are unconscionable.”
Falconer was met with shouts of “they don’t care” when he told MPs: “I have raised this, and will continue to raise this with both the Israeli deputy foreign minister and Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.”
Tory backbencher Kit Malthouse, a former minister, called for Foreign Office ministers to resign over the situation in Gaza.
He said: “Why aren’t they standing down and compelling the Government to actually do something active and physical to save these lives?”
