Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Access

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Ward]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am sure that the Minister has heard what she said, and I have a lot more to say about how we can protect civilians and aid workers, too.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with her time. Just before this debate, I met Antoine Renard, who made a point to me about the disinformation that is being spread about rotten food, and emphasised the importance of having trusted NGOs, a point my hon. Friend made earlier in her speech. Does she agree that we must compel the President of the United States to recognise those points when he comes to the UK on a state visit next week?

[Melanie Ward]

My hon. Friend makes an important intervention. Indeed, this topic is riddled with misinformation and errant nonsense, put out there for political reasons; I am sure that we will hear some more of it later on.

The issue of access for aid workers has received much less attention than that of aid not being allowed into Gaza in the first place, but, to state the obvious, it is no use getting malnutrition treatment into a warzone without the skilled staff—whether local or international aid workers —who know how to use it. Being able to reach starving children is obviously essential to saving their lives.

There are many ways of denying humanitarian access: visa and permit restrictions that deny entry; failing to grant movement permission, which means not agreeing to give safe passage to humanitarian workers; putting in place requirements to hand over sensitive information about local staff and clients; threatening to close down banking; and making it simply too dangerous to work in an area. The Israeli Government are using every one of these tactics to shut down legitimate humanitarian operations in Gaza today. It is not Hamas that pay the price for that; it is starving children.

The Israeli Government have a new front in their war. It is against NGOs, including humanitarian aid charities, some of them British. As of yesterday, the Israeli Government have introduced new restrictions on NGO registration, which require international NGOs to share sensitive personal information about Palestinian employees or face termination of their humanitarian operations across the OPT. NGOs such as Medical Aid for Palestinians have made clear that such data-sharing would put lives at risk in such a dangerous context for aid workers, especially given the fact that 98% of aid workers killed have been Palestinian nationals.

One month ago, on 6 August, UN agencies and others issued a warning that, without immediate action, most international NGOs faced deregistration, which would force them to withdraw all international staff and prevent them from providing critical lifesaving aid to Palestinians. The deadline of 9 September passed yesterday; the evidence so far suggests that the staff of aid agencies that speak out about what they witness are being particularly targeted. As a former aid worker who has worked in a range of war zones, including Gaza, I know that advocacy about what we see is vital in trying to bring change.

The move to block international NGOs from operating in Gaza has been compounded since the chilling arrival of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in May. Let us call it what it is: a bunch of mercenaries, and a disgrace. Since the GHF was set up, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Gaza while seeking aid, in what has been described by Médecins Sans Frontières as “orchestrated killing”. A recent MSF report says that the majority of people attending their clinics after being shot at GHF hubs are

“covered in sand and dust from time spent lying on the ground while taking cover from bullets.”

It quotes one man as saying of the site:

“You find what seems like two million people gathered around five pallets of food. They tell you to enter, you go in, you grab what you can—maybe a can of fava beans, a can of hummus. Then a minute later, gunfire comes from every direction. Shells, gunfire—you can’t even hold onto your can of hummus. You don’t know where the gunfire is coming from.”

Three months after the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began its operations to supposedly provide humanitarian relief in Gaza, the integrated food security phase classification confirmed that Gaza was in famine for the first time. That is the grim reality of a situation where Israel attacks independent aid workers while its own so-called aid workers attack civilians. At least 531 aid workers and 1,590 health workers, overwhelmingly Palestinian nationals, have been killed in Gaza in the past two years.