Gaza: UK Assessment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Adnan Hussain
Main Page: Adnan Hussain (Independent - Blackburn)Department Debates - View all Adnan Hussain's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Falconer
I will resist my hon. Friend, who is not just a doughty advocate for the Palestinian people but a respected lawyer. As he would expect, I am not going to take the opportunity to make a determination at the Dispatch Box, but I will be clear again that forcible displacement is clearly prohibited by international law, and we are clear on that at all times.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
Amnesty International has described the two-month siege in Gaza as “genocide in action”. According to experts, Israel is deliberately creating conditions that could lead to the physical destruction of the Palestinian people, a pattern many argue amounts to genocide. As a signatory to the genocide convention, does the Minister agree that the UK has a legal duty to act when there is a risk of genocide, and that the duty to prevent begins not when genocide is confirmed, proven or established, but when there is a reasonable suspicion that it is occurring? The alarms are flashing red and the warning signs are there for the Government to act. Will they act?
Mr Falconer
I have set out the process of determination, the provisional measures that have been issued by the ICJ and the Government’s determination not to wait until cases are concluded but to take action now to try to preserve life.