Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report entitled Famine Review Committee: Gaza Strip, published in March 2024, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the analysis in that report on the likelihood of imminent famine in Gaza.

Palestinians are facing a devastating and growing humanitarian crisis. The UK and our partners are stepping up our efforts to get aid in as quickly as possible by land, sea and air.

Israel must take action to allow more aid into Gaza, including scaling up the Jordan corridor, opening a crossing in northern Gaza (Karni, Erez or a new crossing point), fully opening Ashdod Port for aid delivery and increasing screening capacity at Kerem Shalom and Nitzana to seven days a week and extended hours.

The UK is doing all it can to get as much food into Gaza as possible. We recently announced that more than 2,000 tonnes of UK-funded food aid are being distributed by the World Food Programme on the ground. This is our largest delivery of aid to Gaza in this crisis. This follows 750 tonnes of UK funded food aid arriving in Gaza in December, delivered through the World Food Programme, followed by a second delivery of 315 tonnes in January.Last month the UK and Jordan also air-dropped life-saving food and medicines directly to the Tal Al-Hawa hospital in northern Gaza.