UNRWA

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, we will hear from the non-affiliated Bench, followed by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Government Chief Whip. In February, the Hamas data centre was discovered underneath UNRWA’s headquarters and, just yesterday, UNRWA terrorists were discovered using an UNRWA school as a base from which to launch their attacks, so it is absolutely clear that UNRWA still has very serious questions to answer. In the meantime, there are other agencies with whom we should be working to get much-needed humanitarian aid in for the poor people of Gaza, who have been so terribly affected by the war Hamas deliberately launched on 7 October, when it raped, kidnapped and murdered so many civilians.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that we are doing exactly that. Notwithstanding that, the funding that we have given has also been focused on other agencies like the World Food Programme, UNICEF and others. I come back to this point: I am sure the noble Lord recognises that mitigations are necessary, and we are pressing on those, but, equally, UNRWA has the most effective structures in Gaza. We need to ensure that those are not just revitalised, but that they are done so to allow for mitigation of the issues that were previously raised.