Gaza: Humanitarian Aid

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

What happened to Israel on 7 October was a devastating attack of terrorism. Israel has every right to defend itself, and we have said this consistently. Israel is a friend and an ally. We have close links with the people of Israel and they should grow in the coming months and years. But what is happening now is wrong. The withdrawal and blockade of aid, and the inability of people to get that aid where it is needed straightaway, because of a choice being made by a Government, is wrong. The noble Lord is right to remind us about what happened on 7 October, and we are all right to hold in our hearts and minds the plight of those hostages still being held. But that does not make it right to withhold food from hungry children.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I too declare an interest, having just returned from Israel/Palestine last week. As we talk about humanitarian aid, does the Minister agree that the horrors we are now seeing in Gaza cannot and should not be separated from the tensions and conflicts in the West Bank, and that what we are seeing across the whole of the Occupied Palestinian Territories of Gaza, east Jerusalem and the West Bank are all part of one and the same thing —a diminishing of human dignity and equality, a dispossession of land and identity, and a violation by the Israeli Government of the right of Palestinian people to self-determination?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I was in Ramallah in the West Bank myself a couple of weeks ago and I spoke to families who have been forced to move. It is right that we are reminded that we cannot just separate what is happening in Gaza and in the West Bank. It is the same Government undertaking all of this. What struck me, from the conversations I had, was the level of fear that there is in all communities in Israel and the West Bank. It is important that, inasmuch as we can, the UK uses its ability to influence, to try to work alongside the US, Egypt and Qatar to try to get some kind of negotiated settlement here so that there can be a ceasefire, the hostages can be released and we can get the aid where it is needed.