Speaking in the House of Commons during the Prime Minister’s statement on the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Brendan O’Hara MP, said any Israeli response to the atrocity “must be legal and it must be proportionate”, and it had to comply with International Humanitarian Law.
The Argyll and Bute MP, who also serves as the SNP’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson at Westminster, began his contribution by echoing “the Prime Minister’s unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and the appalling acts of terrorist violence,” which has left more than 1,400 Israeli’s dead and hundreds of others taken hostage.
Mr O’Hara said that although he supported Israel’s right to find the perpetrators and to hold them to account for their actions, International Humanitarian Law dictated that “a collective punishment against an entire civilian population, one which involves forced displacement, the cutting off of water, food, fuel and medicine, can never be legal or proportionate.”
Speaking afterwards, the Argyll & Bute MP said: “There is an unimaginable humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza right now, where two and a half million people are crammed into an area which is 20 times smaller than Argyll and Bute.”
He continued: “It is hard to imagine so many people living in such a confined area, and having to do so without water, electricity or fuel, and having to do it while being under constant aerial bombardment.”
Aid agencies working in Gaza have estimated that at least 3,500 people, including well over 1,000 children have been killed in the last week, although they believe many of the dead remain unaccounted for and are still under the rubble of their apartment blocks.
Hospitals in Gaza are full to overflowing and without a water supply to run the equipment sterilisation machines, charity workers believe that a “public health catastrophe” was now inevitable.
Immediately after the Prime Minister’s Statement, Mr O’Hara laid a motion before Parliament calling on Israel to end its siege, restore power and water to the civilian population and urging the UK government to work with its allies to create a humanitarian corridor, one which would allow civilians to flee and allow lifesaving supplies into Gaza.
He concluded by calling on “the UK government to play its part, along with the rest of the international community to find a just solution to this ongoing crisis, as without justice, there can be no peace, and this cycle of violence will continue resulting in even more innocent Israeli and Palestinian lives being lost”.