EMMA LEWELL-BUCK MP: Gaza conflict - ​words, laws and international treaties seem hollow when not backed with action

The Israeli Army’s instruction to civilians in the North to move South displaced 85% of the population, as the bombs continue to fall in the South, they have nowhere left to go.

It has been reported that over 7,000 children have been killed and thousands more injured. 25,000 have been orphaned.

For those children humanitarian aid is scant. Food, water, clothing, medicine, are all in short supply. Only a tiny percentage of the aid required is moving through the Rafah crossing, dodging bombs as it goes.

The World Health Organization have estimated that 73% of hospitals in Gaza are no longer functioning and has recorded huge amounts of cases of acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, scabies and lice amongst children. Healthcare and sanitation are collapsing.

There are currently 52,000 pregnant women in Gaza. These women are facing giving birth in shelters, on the streets or in hospital hallways, without anaesthesia, undergoing caesareans whilst awake and without pain killers, all under intense bombardment.

The international community keeps insisting that civilians must be protected, and International Humanitarian Law upheld yet, words, laws, and international treaties seem hollow when they are not backed with action.

Last week the United Nations Security Council proposed a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the USA vetoed it and the UK shamefully abstained.

During the seven-day ‘humanitarian pause’, 110 hostages were released by Hamas and the relentless loss of civilians was halted. The translation into a longer-term peace would pave a way for the release of further hostages and an end to this cataclysmic loss of life.

This is why I voted for a ceasefire and will continue to do so.

As this is my last column before Christmas, I hope you all have a lovely peaceful time and hold in your hearts the civilians of Gaza, the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas and the millions of children around the world suffering in conflicts they have no responsibility for.