Middle East and North Africa

Lord Massey of Hampstead Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Yes, that needs to happen, and it should happen. The world needs to have proper journalists able to report to a high standard about what is happening now and what has happened previously.

The 20-point plan is something we are going to stick with. It is all there is. There is no alternative peace plan: this is it, imperfect though it surely is. There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of aid getting into Gaza. It is not enough. We do not agree at all with the registration requirements and the disclosure of names of personnel; we are fundamentally against that. It goes against the principles by which we work. We have said so, and we will continue to make that point.

[Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con)]

My Lords, the Statement contains the usual highly condemnatory statements on Israel’s behaviour, using very emotive terms such as unjustifiable and unforgivable. It spends eight paragraphs on Israel’s conduct but only 10 words on the other side of the issue, which are, “Hamas should disarm and allow a path to lasting security”—no emotive language and no criticism of Hamas. The Statement describes the ban on the 37 NGOs as “unjustifiable” but does not mention the actuality that the ban will take place in March if those NGOs do not disclose details of their staff and operations. Given that we know that UNWRA and other NGOs have been infiltrated by Hamas, why is it so unjustifiable that Israel requires this information, especially in the context of Hamas’s refusal to disarm and honour its side of the agreement? I ask the Minister whether she thinks there is a natural connection between Israel’s conduct and Hamas’s refusal to honour its side of the agreement.

I have an additional question, on the matter of Alaa el-Fattah’s tweet. If the Government had done their due diligence, would he still have been welcomed back to the UK?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

What he said was wrong. As to whether different decisions would have been made at an earlier point, I cannot answer. Maybe the point at which to have made a different decision would have been the point at which he was awarded citizenship, but this Government were not responsible for that choice. Once citizenship has been given, to remove citizenship—abhorrent though the things he said clearly were, and he has rightly apologised for them, I am not clear that they would have been sufficient cause to deprive someone of their citizenship, even though we fundamentally disagree with what was said. I think the noble Lord can appreciate the complexities around that.

On the issue of aid agencies and personnel, the Israeli Government are requiring the disclosure of the names of individuals working for aid agencies. We disagree with that. Other people will agree with it, but we do not. We think that is the wrong way to conduct access for aid agencies. We just think the Government of Israel are wrong on this point, and we will continue to make that case to them and explain why. These agencies are very effective at getting aid to people who need it desperately. The depth of need is still there. Things have improved somewhat—the latest IPC assessments of hunger show that things have improved a bit—but an awful lot more still needs to happen. Thousands of traumatised children are having difficulty with speech and language at school, accessing education and healthcare, and getting sufficient quality food. These are all things that I know everyone in this Chamber would want to see resolved, and we think the best way to do that is to allow the agencies to do their job.