7 July 2017
Thank you to everyone who wrote to their MP encouraging them to support Palestinians’ rights to health and dignity in a House of Commons debate on Wednesday. Over 1,500 emails were sent to 545 MPs, which is fantastic.
We highlighted three priorities:
1) Commitment to international law;
2) Investing in sustainable healthcare in the occupied Palestinian territory; and
3) Working to end the 10-year blockade of Gaza and 50-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
On Wednesday 5 July, the debate took place and MPs discussed ‘Israel and Palestinian Talks’. The interventions from a number of MPs chimed with our priority calls and we highlight some of them here.
Joanna Cherry MP called for the UK government to be “united in… [their] opposition to flagrant breaches of international law and flagrant human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinians territories”. At MAP we know this is critical, since impunity fuels cycles of violence and violations of human rights. The UK must re-commit to supporting accountability for violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) in international forums such as the UN Human Rights Council and in bilateral relations with Israel and the Palestinians.
Seema Malhotra MP called on the government to “acknowledge the worsening of the humanitarian situation” in Gaza. She stated that “[i]n 2012, the UN said that Gaza would be unliveable by 2012. Many experts say that 2020 is already here”.
Ms Nusrat Ghani MP said “the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip is neither productive nor appropriate, and the Minister must call for its further relaxation”.
Richard Burden MP highlighted that a joint statement issued on 12 May by the UN’s humanitarian agencies operating in the West Bank and Gaza stated that “[e]nding the occupation is the single most important priority to enable Palestinians to advance development goals, reduce humanitarian needs and ensure respect for Human Rights”.
Working to end the 10-year blockade of Gaza and 50-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem is critical in MAP’s view. Even where healthcare is available, restrictions on movement and the ongoing separation of the West Bank and Gaza prevent Palestinians from accessing services. Ending these major barriers to rights and freedoms will help Palestinians attain their rights, and would be a major step toward peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Stephen Kinnock MP, who visited the West Bank with MAP and Caabu in 2014, spoke of the impact of occupation, blockade and closure on Gaza’s healthcare. He stated “power shortages mean that were it not for the increasingly hard-to-obtain fuel that runs emergency generators, hospitals would go dark. That would mean up to 40 surgical operation theatres, 11 obstetric theatres, five haemodialysis centres and hospital emergency rooms serving almost 4,000 patients a day being forced to halt critical services.”
Kinnock highlighted the case of Aya Khalil Abu Metalq, a girl who died after being repeatedly denied exit from Gaza for medical treatment by the Israeli authorities. “As always, it is the children who are hit hardest...It seems that the bureaucracy of the blockade held out for longer than that little girl’s health could.”
Concluding for the Government, The Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, made clear that the UK Government had provided £349m worth of support for Palestinian development from 2011 to 2015, and a further £72m between 2015 and 2016 and that he saw no sign of this changing.
MAP calls on the UK government to help address the development of Palestinian health sector by prioritising investment in sustainable Palestinian-led health infrastructure, and ensuring that the root causes of the obstacles to Palestinian healthcare – including the closure and blockade of Gaza and the occupation of Palestinian territory – are brought to an end.
You can read the full debate here.
If you did not get a chance last week to write to your MP to support Palestinian health and dignity, you can do so using the tool below. There will be more debates and more opportunities for MPs to engage on these issues, and the more informed and encouraged they are the better!
