Flick Drummond is MP for Meon Valley. She set up Conservative Friends of Palestine with Baroness Warsi in 2022.
The Foreign and Defence Secretaries’ call for a sustained ceasefire is timely but comes too late for many Palestinians. Even if a lasting ceasefire came into effect today, addressing the impact of the last ten weeks will take years.
Words cannot do justice to the scale of the atrocities unfolding in Gaza. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.
Humanitarian agencies describe a situation of atrocity prevention and unparalleled suffering. Over 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza out of a population of 2.3 million have been forcibly displaced. The Israeli military is now kettling them into eve- smaller parcels of overcrowded, unsanitary spaces.
Winter floods contaminated with untreated sewage spread disease in the remaining shelters. Over 350,000 Palestinians have had diarrhoea. As we heard from Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon last week, it has become a ‘death world’. The destruction of the health service makes it impossible to live there, medical staff are being killed and ambulances fired on. Amputations on children are increasingly common. Wounds are being cleaned with washing up liquid and vinegar as medical supplies have run out.
The latest horrendous catastrophe in Gaza has long reached a stage that, whether Israeli or Palestinian, little positive can come out of this. The longer it continues, the worse the scenarios become.
On the Palestinian side, it is innocent civilians who are bearing the brunt of Israel’s savage onslaught. An Israeli study showed that out of more than 18,000 Palestinian fatalities, 61 per cent were civilian. This is considerably higher than in previous Israeli attacks on Gaza. Israel’s rules of engagement are opaque. An Israeli army spokesman stated: “our focus is on damage, not on precision”. Palestinian civilians are running out of food, water and medicines. Many Palestinian civilians have lost their homes. They feel they have no future.
Israel will as ever predominate militarily. The asymmetry is massive. Yet as this urban warfare goes on, this asymmetry is evened up. More Israeli soldiers are dying. The remaining hostages may well lose their lives, including through ‘friendly fire’ as we have seen all too tragically last week.
Israel may kill more Hamas fighters, but at what cost? Many Palestinians in Gaza may well join the group out of anger, frustration and despair. Opinion polls indicate many Palestinians, including in the West Bank, have shifted to backing Hamas largely because its fighters are standing up to Israeli aggression in their eyes.
Hamas may think it is winning in its warped way. Yet its brutal attacks on 7 October have achieved nothing. Freedom for Palestinians is further away and will continue to be while Hamas fires rockets into Israel. This conflict may weaken Israel but not strengthen Palestinians.
The October 7th attacks did not originate in the West Bank, but Palestinians have faced a huge Israeli onslaught. More Palestinians have been killed there in 2023 than in any other year since the UN started keeping records in 2005. Home demolitions continue at record levels with the support of the IDF.
This is why it is so welcome that the Foreign Secretary has announced that Britain will follow the example of the US by banning extremist Israeli settlers from entering the UK. More needs to be done to stop the scourge of the illegal settlement industry. It is devastating to any chances of a long-term solution. The international community must hold Israel accountable for these illegal settlements and there should be a total ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
The Palestinian Authority has been undermined and needs our help. If Israel truly wants to defeat Hamas, then it needs to back the peaceful alternative, and demonstrate that those Palestinians willing to negotiate can reap the benefits. Israeli attacks on Palestinian civil society with the permit system and military courts deny any democratic future. The Palestinian economy is collapsing because of the Israeli closures and the refusal to hand over Palestinian customs revenues. Bethlehem depends on tourists especially over the Christmas season but will be receiving very few this year.
Worse, the risk that this conflict spreads across the region increases every day. Those Arab states with whom Israel has peace deals are moving away. Arab leaders are all too aware of the fury of their citizens at the apocalyptic scenes Israel is responsible for in Gaza. Regional peace is further away than ever.
The Houthis have fired on shipping in the Red Sea. Israel and Hizbollah are trading blows, risking all-out war with suffering on a scale even greater than Gaza. Diplomacy may be able to secure a credible ceasefire now for Gaza, but if conflict spreads to Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, the international community may become powerless bystanders.
Palestinians and the Global South see the U.S and European states deal with Gaza very differently to Ukraine. When Russia used starvation as a weapon of war, it was immediately condemned as a war crime. When Israel does this to Palestinians in Gaza, western leaderships refuse to criticise.
The failure to stop the massively destructive bombing of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure may also come back to haunt the donor community. Who will pay for the rebuilding of Gaza? Israel has put hospitals out of commission. The health service has collapsed, as has the water and sewage infrastructure. Israel will refuse to pay for the destruction it has wreaked on Gaza, even when it is clear many of the facilities Israel bombed were not legitimate military targets. Healthcare workers, academics, and journalists, have all been killed in huge numbers.
Britain was in danger of becoming isolated in refusing to back a ceasefire and abstaining twice at the UN Security Council. We must stand up for the international rules-based order, international law and human rights, otherwise it will have a long-lasting effect on how Britain is viewed globally.
If there is no ceasefire, where does this end up? By the end of December, how much of Gaza will be left standing? Will Palestinians, as many fear, be forced into another Nakba losing their homeland?
It is time for Britain to say enough: that there is no military solution to this horror. We need a lasting ceasefire now. This should be the springboard for a credible political process that addresses the long ignored underlying issues to this conflict. That is the only way forward.
Flick Drummond is MP for Meon Valley. She set up Conservative Friends of Palestine with Baroness Warsi in 2022.
The Foreign and Defence Secretaries’ call for a sustained ceasefire is timely but comes too late for many Palestinians. Even if a lasting ceasefire came into effect today, addressing the impact of the last ten weeks will take years.
Words cannot do justice to the scale of the atrocities unfolding in Gaza. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.
Humanitarian agencies describe a situation of atrocity prevention and unparalleled suffering. Over 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza out of a population of 2.3 million have been forcibly displaced. The Israeli military is now kettling them into eve- smaller parcels of overcrowded, unsanitary spaces.
Winter floods contaminated with untreated sewage spread disease in the remaining shelters. Over 350,000 Palestinians have had diarrhoea. As we heard from Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon last week, it has become a ‘death world’. The destruction of the health service makes it impossible to live there, medical staff are being killed and ambulances fired on. Amputations on children are increasingly common. Wounds are being cleaned with washing up liquid and vinegar as medical supplies have run out.
The latest horrendous catastrophe in Gaza has long reached a stage that, whether Israeli or Palestinian, little positive can come out of this. The longer it continues, the worse the scenarios become.
On the Palestinian side, it is innocent civilians who are bearing the brunt of Israel’s savage onslaught. An Israeli study showed that out of more than 18,000 Palestinian fatalities, 61 per cent were civilian. This is considerably higher than in previous Israeli attacks on Gaza. Israel’s rules of engagement are opaque. An Israeli army spokesman stated: “our focus is on damage, not on precision”. Palestinian civilians are running out of food, water and medicines. Many Palestinian civilians have lost their homes. They feel they have no future.
Israel will as ever predominate militarily. The asymmetry is massive. Yet as this urban warfare goes on, this asymmetry is evened up. More Israeli soldiers are dying. The remaining hostages may well lose their lives, including through ‘friendly fire’ as we have seen all too tragically last week.
Israel may kill more Hamas fighters, but at what cost? Many Palestinians in Gaza may well join the group out of anger, frustration and despair. Opinion polls indicate many Palestinians, including in the West Bank, have shifted to backing Hamas largely because its fighters are standing up to Israeli aggression in their eyes.
Hamas may think it is winning in its warped way. Yet its brutal attacks on 7 October have achieved nothing. Freedom for Palestinians is further away and will continue to be while Hamas fires rockets into Israel. This conflict may weaken Israel but not strengthen Palestinians.
The October 7th attacks did not originate in the West Bank, but Palestinians have faced a huge Israeli onslaught. More Palestinians have been killed there in 2023 than in any other year since the UN started keeping records in 2005. Home demolitions continue at record levels with the support of the IDF.
This is why it is so welcome that the Foreign Secretary has announced that Britain will follow the example of the US by banning extremist Israeli settlers from entering the UK. More needs to be done to stop the scourge of the illegal settlement industry. It is devastating to any chances of a long-term solution. The international community must hold Israel accountable for these illegal settlements and there should be a total ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
The Palestinian Authority has been undermined and needs our help. If Israel truly wants to defeat Hamas, then it needs to back the peaceful alternative, and demonstrate that those Palestinians willing to negotiate can reap the benefits. Israeli attacks on Palestinian civil society with the permit system and military courts deny any democratic future. The Palestinian economy is collapsing because of the Israeli closures and the refusal to hand over Palestinian customs revenues. Bethlehem depends on tourists especially over the Christmas season but will be receiving very few this year.
Worse, the risk that this conflict spreads across the region increases every day. Those Arab states with whom Israel has peace deals are moving away. Arab leaders are all too aware of the fury of their citizens at the apocalyptic scenes Israel is responsible for in Gaza. Regional peace is further away than ever.
The Houthis have fired on shipping in the Red Sea. Israel and Hizbollah are trading blows, risking all-out war with suffering on a scale even greater than Gaza. Diplomacy may be able to secure a credible ceasefire now for Gaza, but if conflict spreads to Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, the international community may become powerless bystanders.
Palestinians and the Global South see the U.S and European states deal with Gaza very differently to Ukraine. When Russia used starvation as a weapon of war, it was immediately condemned as a war crime. When Israel does this to Palestinians in Gaza, western leaderships refuse to criticise.
The failure to stop the massively destructive bombing of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure may also come back to haunt the donor community. Who will pay for the rebuilding of Gaza? Israel has put hospitals out of commission. The health service has collapsed, as has the water and sewage infrastructure. Israel will refuse to pay for the destruction it has wreaked on Gaza, even when it is clear many of the facilities Israel bombed were not legitimate military targets. Healthcare workers, academics, and journalists, have all been killed in huge numbers.
Britain was in danger of becoming isolated in refusing to back a ceasefire and abstaining twice at the UN Security Council. We must stand up for the international rules-based order, international law and human rights, otherwise it will have a long-lasting effect on how Britain is viewed globally.
If there is no ceasefire, where does this end up? By the end of December, how much of Gaza will be left standing? Will Palestinians, as many fear, be forced into another Nakba losing their homeland?
It is time for Britain to say enough: that there is no military solution to this horror. We need a lasting ceasefire now. This should be the springboard for a credible political process that addresses the long ignored underlying issues to this conflict. That is the only way forward.