Israel and Palestine

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

We are strong supporters of the ICJ and the work it does on this question and a whole range of others. To bring together his question and the question from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), it is very important that we uphold the work of these courts.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

We genuinely welcome this statement. The Foreign Secretary has hinted at this, but let me be clear: it is somewhere between heartbreaking and criminal that it has taken three years and 70,000 Palestinian deaths for the UK Government to finally arrive at this position. Already, however, we are hearing that elements within the FCDO are briefing that these sanctions are largely symbolic. Will the Foreign Secretary utterly refute that? Will he confirm that these sanctions are not fixed and that there can and will be further action, should Israel press ahead with this illegal expansion programme?

[Ed Miliband]

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that under the previous Prime Minister this Government recognised the state of Palestine. That was a major thing that we did. I praise my predecessors for that, and we also took action on arms licences. I do not completely accept the picture he gives. I do agree though, and the Prime Minister has said this, that we need to do more. That is what we have done today. I think the sanctions regime will make a substantive difference, and that is absolutely our intention. He is right that once we bring in the sanctions regime, we will, as always, keep its scope under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

Yes. I associate myself pretty much entirely with the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks. We need to face facts on both sides of the House here. It has been the policy of successive Governments over a long period to be for the two-state solution, but if we are for the two-state solution and we see it being destroyed by the facts on the ground, we must act. The right hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest and expertise on these issues, and I assure him that we will do so.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary to his new role. He will be aware that none of his recent predecessors were ever short of an angry word or condemnatory statement about Israel’s actions in Gaza or the west bank, but they were woefully short on any meaningful action to back up their supposed outrage. What is happening in the west bank is happening right now, so time is of the essence. When will he spell out exactly the consequences for the state of Israel and for any UK national or UK-based company found to be complicit in this illegal E1 expansion programme?

[Ed Miliband]

I do want to defend the record of my predecessors for a moment. Recognition of the Palestinian state was a historic decision made by this Government, and action was taken on arms licences. As the Prime Minister has said, we on this side of the House recognise the need for a step change in our approach, given the urgency. As I say, the hon. Gentleman will not have to wait too long.

Israel: E1 Zone Expansion

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I have set out as clearly as I can our position on the E1 settlement. I have also been clear that no one should be profiting from unlawfully seized land.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

The expansion is yet another egregious violation of international law, and as expected, the UK Government have unequivocally condemned it, but the problem is that, as Tel Aviv understands it, condemnation from the United Kingdom is pretty meaningless and largely consequence-free. That is a position that simply cannot hold. Will the Minister lay out what the consequences will be for the state of Israel of its actions, and for any UK company that seeks to involve itself in the illegal expansion into the E1 zone?

[Mr Falconer]

I gently push back on the suggestion that what we do has no consequences. I have been pleased to see, as I said to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, that other partners and allies have taken the actions that we have. There are consequences for Israel, in terms of its position in the world, when it alienates as many of its friends and allies as it has. We have set out as clearly as we can, both for companies and for the Israeli Government, what our views on the E1 settlement are. We did that at head-of-Government level last month. That statement has been seen widely around the world. I cannot guarantee to this House that people will take heed of the statement, but we have set out our position in exactly the way that the hon. Gentleman requests.

Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that the action we have already taken has a stronger impact than many of the other measures he is talking about. That includes imposing sanctions on individual members of the Israeli Cabinet, which very many other Governments have not done. We encourage other Governments to do what we have done. It also includes the work internationally to seek to find new energy behind the two-state solution. That includes the 20-point peace plan in Gaza, but must include the west bank as well. Tomorrow, when I travel to Egypt, I will be meeting the new Palestinian National Committee that will be operating in Gaza. It is that concerted international effort that we need to have an impact.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

Last week Amnesty International published a report entitled “Erasing Anything Palestinian”, which shines a powerful light on Israel’s ethnic cleansing in the west bank. It makes clear that what is happening is not driven by rogue settlers or a few extremist Ministers; rather, it is state sanctioned and state financed. Yet to date the UK’s response has been largely performative and, unfortunately, fairly inconsequential. Do the Government accept that this is state-enabled ethnic cleansing? If they do, should they not be doing much, much more to prevent it and to punish the perpetrator?

[Yvette Cooper]

Once again, I point out the strength of the action we have taken; we have brought together countries from across the world—and gone further than most countries. What is being driven here is deeply disturbing: both the level of violence, and the deliberate attempt—with the E1 settlements in particular—to undermine any possibility of a two-state solution. That is a long-term thing, and it has been supported by many people across the Israeli Government. It is a deep challenge for everyone, which is why we need international action. In the autumn, we had the international consensus and energy to deliver the 20-point plan for Gaza, which nobody expected would be achieved. We need to pull that energy together again. That is why I was in Paris on Friday, it is why I discussed this issue with Australia and Canada, as well as European colleagues, and it is why I will go to Egypt—to the middle east, where the energy on many of these things has come from—in order to try to make progress on it again.

Middle East

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the work my hon. Friend has done on how charity systems are abused to funnel support to illegal settlements. She has rightly raised that issue not just with me but with the Culture Secretary and directly with the Charity Commission. The Minister for the Middle East will be meeting the CEO of the Charity Commission tomorrow to pursue exactly this issue to ensure there is a thorough investigation. Some evidence suggests that rules are being broken. We should not end up with UK gift aid being funnelled to illegal settlements. That clearly breaches all the standards that anybody across the UK would expect there to be, as well as the Charity Commission rules, which is why it is essential to look at this. On the wider issues around trade, we do not want trade with illegal settlements. That is why we will continue to look at strengthening the sanctions regime and work with allies across the world.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

We welcome the new sanctions, but the issue of illegality goes much deeper than these now-sanctioned organisations. The illegal settlements in the west bank are state sponsored, state financed and state protected. That is also the case for the settler violence that inevitably follows, which is carried out with almost complete impunity. Why have the Government chosen to sanction these particular organisations, but decided not to take further action against the Netanyahu regime in the face of its state-sponsored illegal settlement policy?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I set out earlier, the UK has introduced sanctions against individual members of the Netanyahu Government, something that very few countries across the world have actually done. We believe that is the right thing to do because of the seriousness of what they have done and the seriousness of the situation around illegal settlements. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is about international law more widely, but also, specifically, the peace and security of the middle east. We know that there is no alternative to the two-state solution, but ultimately, to make progress on Gaza, as we did for a brief period in autumn, we need to build up international consensus and not just look for what individual countries should do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

We have continued to raise the importance of all the necessary aid getting into Gaza. It is welcome that over the last week the amount of aid that has gone in has increased, but it is still not adequate to the needs. We have raised the question of restrictions directly and repeatedly with the Israeli Government and we will continue to do so. It is vital that aid gets to the people who need it.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

Would the UK consider a state to be a democracy and would it continue normal diplomatic relations with that state were it to introduce a differential death penalty based on ethnicity?

[Mr Falconer]

I think the hon. Member refers to the legislation passed in the Israeli Knesset. We oppose the death penalty everywhere. On 29 March, we joined many of our friends across the world to condemn that specific measure, and the Foreign Secretary has raised it specifically with the Israeli Foreign Minister. I can leave the House in no doubt about our opposition to the measures.

Strait of Hormuz

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend on that. That is exactly what the Prime Minister has set out today: not only how we will take these decisions in the British interest, but the measures we are taking to meet the needs of the British people, who are particularly affected by the energy consequences of this war.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

The Government previously said that the United States could use UK airfields only for the specific and limited purposes of defending against Iran’s reckless attacks, yet we know that RAF Fairford has been used by the United States to launch B-52 bombers carrying up to 24 cruise missiles at a time. Given President Trump’s reckless and dangerous language about Kharg island at the weekend, when he said that

“we may hit it a few more times just for fun”,

what guarantees can the Minister give this House that none of the missions coming from the UK will target civilians or civilian infrastructure?

[Stephen Doughty]

I am simply not going to get into hypotheticals on the Floor of the House. What I can say is that, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, the Prime Minister has been very clear about the principles on which he took the first decision and the principles on which he took the second decision. He has been very, very clear about that.

Consular Assistance

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

We are providing travel advice for every country relevant. It is changing quite quickly. I encourage people to look at the specific travel advice. After much painful experience of complex crises, I do not intend to provide a detailed definition of vulnerability. In a crisis of this nature, I would prefer that people speak directly to my officials to explain why they feel vulnerable so that we can give the best possible advice. People should err on the side of caution and call the Foreign Office hotline if they are worried about vulnerability.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

Our thoughts are with those stranded in the region, and we wish them safe passage as soon as possible. I fear that this is the moment when the hollowing out of the UK’s consular support service has real-life consequences for many UK nationals. Of course, there is no consular support presence in Tehran at the moment. I know that the Minister is aware of the dire situation faced by Craig and Lindsay Foreman, who are being arbitrarily detained in Evin prison. Before leaving Tehran, did embassy staff make contact with Craig and Lindsay directly to advise them on what to do in the event they were released or managed to escape from Evin prison, and if not, why not?

[Mr Falconer]

For reasons the House will understand, I will not provide a detailed commentary on direct contact with Craig and Lindsay Foreman. The hon. Member is right that we cannot offer consular assistance in Iran—we have withdrawn our embassy—but I encourage anybody concerned about their family in Iran to be in direct contact with the Foreign Office. This is clearly an extremely sensitive moment. We will take the same approach this year as we did in the conflict last year. We will provide all the help that we can, but we must manage expectations in the absence of our embassy. In the long-standing absence of our ability to provide consular support in Iran, what we can do will be limited, but people who are worried about family members in Iran should not hesitate to contact us.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Genocide Risk Assessment

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the obligation to assess the risk of genocide under international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I put on record my thanks to the Speaker’s Office for working so hard to ensure that we have time for the debate this afternoon? Given the pressure on time, and in order to allow as many Back-Bench speeches as possible, I will not take any interventions.

In his book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”, the Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad wrote:

“The moral component of history, the most necessary component, is simply a single question, asked over and over again: When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power? What makes moments such as this one so dangerous, so clarifying, is that one way or another everyone is forced to answer.”

That question will have to be answered. That may not be today or even this year, but at some point all of us, particularly those who hold positions of power or have a public platform, will have to answer that fundamental question: which side were we on? Were we on the side of justice, or did we side with the powerful?

When asked, each of us will have to answer: did we speak up for the tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children who were killed; did we use our platform to actively oppose the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians from their homes and communities as they were reduced to rubble, and condemn unequivocally the collective punishment imposed on an entire population when the basics necessary to sustain life—water, electricity, food and medicine—were deliberately withheld from them; or did we, either by what we said and did, or by what we did not say and did not do, side with the powerful, look away because it was in our political or financial interests so to do, and give political cover and legitimacy to the Netanyahu regime as it carried out its genocide while our Government supplied it with the weapons and military intelligence to do so?

The Hamas attack of 7 October was utterly appalling, and no right-thinking person could excuse or condone what happened that day. Neither, however, could any right-thinking person excuse or condone the Israeli response, which has been not just disproportionate, but brutal and relentless. Israel’s response has been carried out in such a systematic manner that, in my opinion, no reasonable person could deny that what we have witnessed in Gaza over the past two and a half years constitutes genocide.

The Government have denied, and continue to this day to deny, that it is a genocide. It is a decision that the Government will have to explain, and with which they will have to live. Today, however, I am not here to play ping-pong with the Government on the legal definition of what does and does not constitute genocide.

Instead, I want to focus on the mountain of evidence that says there is at least a serious risk of genocide occurring, and that serious risk should have triggered the UK’s legal obligation to act under the terms of the genocide convention, as explained by the International Court of Justice in its 2007 Bosnia ruling—an obligation that comes into effect long before any determination of genocide has been made by a court. The standard of serious risk is designed to be an early warning that ensures that states and international bodies act to prevent a genocide from occurring. In the case of the Palestinian people of Gaza, the UK has clearly and undeniably failed abjectly to meet its legal responsibility when alerted to there being a serious risk of genocide.

When the UK signed the genocide convention in 1948, it promised to prevent and punish this most heinous of crimes. Now, with more 71,000 people dead and 200,000 people injured, Gaza reduced to an uninhabitable wasteland, its population in the grip of a man-made famine and its medical infrastructure obliterated, hundreds of journalists murdered, water and electricity used as a means of coercion and punishment, food and medicine denied to the starving and the dying and the repeated forced displacement of millions of civilians, it is surely beyond any dispute that the minimum requirement for the UK to act to prevent and punish the crime of genocide has been met.

Arguably the most damning indictment, however, is that more than 21,000 children have been killed by the Israel Defence Forces since October 2023. Let us not forget that in November 2023 the UK Government formally intervened in the case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar at the ICJ to argue for changes to the definition of genocide that included lowering the threshold when damage was inflicted on children. If it is appropriate for the UK to intervene to protect children from the bombs and bullets of the Myanmar military, why is it not appropriate for it to intervene to protect Palestinian children from the bombs and bullets of the IDF?

Of course, genocide is not and never has been about numbers. The numbers killed, while shocking, do not in and of themselves necessarily prove genocide; there are other methods, including

“deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

That is why it is important that we look at what else has happened in Gaza since October 2023. Over the past two and a half years, Israel has obliterated the agricultural sector; the fishing industry has gone; the road network has been wrecked; agricultural wells have been demolished; most crop land and greenhouses have been rendered unusable; the vast majority of livestock have been killed; and the vitally important and culturally significant olive tree crops have been targeted and destroyed.

Such is the devastation that a Guardian journalist on board a Jordanian air force plane wrote:

“Seen from the air, Gaza looks like the ruins of an ancient civilisation.”

And he added that Gaza was razed by an Israeli military campaign that has left behind a place that looks like the aftermath of an apocalypse. That does not happen by accident, and it is impossible to view this as anything other than a premeditated attempt to erase Palestinians from their land by making it impossible for human life to survive.

By any measure, collectively, all of that constitutes unimpeachable evidence that there has been a serious risk of genocide. And that should have triggered a UK Government response to prevent that becoming a full-blown genocide, but is has not. It is not as if the Government can say that they did not know or that they were unaware, because, time and again, statements made from that Dispatch Box, including from the former Foreign Secretary and the current Prime Minister, have conceded that they knew exactly what was happening, but they have chosen to do nothing about it. They have accepted and have publicly condemned the siege tactics, the denial of humanitarian assistance, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, the use of evacuation orders, the denial of water, food and electricity, the targeting of journalists, the destruction of healthcare, the astronomical number of civilian casualties, and the deliberate dehumanising of the Palestinian people.

In their own words, the Government have denied undeniable proof that war crimes are being carried out, that mass atrocities are being carried out, and that civilians are being denied the basics to maintain life. A quick trawl of Hansard will reveal that as far back as January 2024, the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), said that

“85% of the population are displaced and millions face the risk of famine.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 622.]

Two months later he said that

“famine in Gaza is imminent... but what distinguishes the horror in Gaza from what has come before is that is it not driven by drought or natural disaster; it is man-made.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2024; Vol. 747, c. 806.]

And in May 2024 he said that

“aid is reportedly being blocked and northern Gaza is now in full blown famine”.—[Official Report, 7 May 2024; Vol. 749, c. 443.]

A year later, in May of 2025, he openly acknowledged Israeli war crimes against the civilian population when he said:

“The whole House should be able to utterly condemn the Israeli Government’s denial of food to hungry children. It is wrong. It is appalling.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 927.]

And then he continued that

“what we are seeing is inhumane, it is deadly and it is depriving Gazans of their human dignity.—[Official Report, 21 July 2025; Vol. 771, c. 662.]

It is there in black and white. The Government have acknowledged it. And the Prime Minister, when he was Leader of the Opposition in October of 2023, acknowledged that serious risk, saying:

“Civilians must not be targeted. Where Palestinians are forced to flee, they must not be permanently displaced… International law is clear. It also means that basic services, including water, electricity and the fuel needed for it, cannot be denied.—[Official Report, 23 October 2023; Vol. 738, c. 593.]

And as Prime Minister he said:

“We continue to see mounting evidence of appalling atrocities against civilians and unacceptable restrictions on humanitarian access.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 806.]

There are so many more examples of the Prime Minister, the former Foreign Secretary and other Ministers admitting from that Dispatch Box that Israel was using food as a weapon of war, that it had manufactured a famine, that it was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, that it was committing war crimes, and that it was stripping Gazans of their human dignity. Yet it remains the official position of the UK Government that none of that—none of it—meets the threshold for there being a serious risk of genocide.

I ask the Minister whether we are being asked to believe that, even when the Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said:

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”.

Did that not trigger within the Government the thought that perhaps there was a serious risk of genocide? Finance Minister Smotrich said:

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed; civilians will be sent to...the south…and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.”

Did that not trigger the thought that, perhaps, there was a potential risk of genocide occurring? The Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, said:

“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible”.

Did that not suggest to the UK Government that perhaps Israel’s response to the atrocities of 7 October was going to be disproportionate, brutal and illegal; and that continuing to sell weapons and maintaining a “business as usual” relationship with Tel Aviv might put us in grave danger of breaching our obligations under the genocide convention?

Despite Israel making its intentions unambiguously clear from the very start—that it was going to ethnically cleanse Gaza, would do so using whatever means necessarily and would do so indiscriminately—it appears that the UK Government made the political choice to deliberately ignore their obligations so that they could continue a business-as-usual relationship with Netanyahu’s Government.

I will finish where I began, with that powerful quote from Omar El Akkad:

“When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power? What makes moments such as this one so dangerous, so clarifying, is that one way or another everyone is forced to answer.”

This UK Government and the Government who preceded them have chosen to side with power over justice, and history will judge them accordingly.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Arctic Security

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to talk about the very strong feelings on this matter right across the UK—of the need to protect sovereignty for the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark more widely, and the sense that to propose tariffs in this way is just deeply wrong. It is counterproductive to our collective security, but it is also deeply wrong.

My hon. Friend has also raised issues of UK resilience. She will know that on things like the Five Eyes partnership, there is very deep, long-standing co-operation and shared technology, but there are also areas in which we agree that Europe needs to do more for its own defence and its own investment, and that is what we are doing.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Greenland. President Trump’s threat to annex Greenland either “the easy way” or “the hard way” is pushing Europe to the verge of one of the biggest political and security crises we have faced in decades. Now, his threat to impose punitive tariffs on those opposing his illegal annexation means that the President of our closest ally is using economic and military threats against the UK and other European nations simply for defending sovereignty, self-determination and international law. On what basis do this Government view this particular President as being a trustworthy and reliable ally?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have made it very clear that threats to Greenland’s sovereignty are wrong, and that threats of tariffs and economic pressure are also wrong, because allies should stand together and not face the kinds of threats we have seen. That is a particular issue for the UK, but also for Denmark, which has been such a close ally to both the UK and the US. We are taking a very robust, hard-headed approach to this matter, to work through what is in the UK national interest and get a resolution that can protect, defend and strengthen Arctic security, as well as UK security more widely. That is the right thing to do.