Britain should recognise a Palestinian state, fly injured Gaza children to the UK for treatment and help dismantle an Israel-backed aid system blamed for hundreds of civilian deaths, MPs say today in a bombshell report.
In a sweeping set of recommendations, the Foreign Affairs Committee has called on the Government to take urgent action as it declared the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank ‘intolerable’.
The committee – made up of seven Labour members, two Liberal Democrats and two Tories – is ramping up pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recognise Palestine as a state, warning that waiting for the ‘perfect time’ has become an excuse for inaction.
It said: ‘The UK…should now recognise the state of Palestine while there is still a state to recognise. An inalienable right should not be made conditional.
‘The Government cannot continue to wait for the perfect time because experience shows that there will never be a perfect time, and in hindsight it is possible to see times when it should have occurred.’
It said the Israeli government ‘is not listening’ to the UK and only sporadically to the US, adding: ‘Pressure must be exerted for this conflict to end and for hostages to be released.’
Health secretary Wes Streeting was the latest minister calling for action yesterday after nearly 60 Labour MPs signed a letter earlier this month.
And business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told LBC: ‘We are deeply committed to the recognition of Palestine as a state, that was part of our manifesto, but obviously we want that to be meaningful.’
It comes as aid agencies warn Gaza is close to famine, saying 113 people have starved to death in the last week. Yesterday, news agencies AP, AFP and Reuters said their journalists in Gaza are close to starvation.
Israel has said the claims are ‘cynical’ lies peddled by Hamas as part of a pressure tactic amid the ongoing hostage negotiations.
The Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Dame Emily Thornberry, said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, established with US funding, had failed catastrophically and must be replaced with a UN-led system.
It said the organisation had directly contributed to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, citing UN figures showing that 875 people have been killed while seeking food.
The report said: ‘The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation system has led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of civilians and a fraction of the required aid arriving into Gaza. It must be replaced by a UN-led system operating on humanitarian principles.’
MPs demanded that the UK and US governments press Israel to open all border crossings for unrestricted access to food, medical supplies, shelter materials and other humanitarian aid.
They said the UK must support the medical evacuation of critically ill children from Gaza to the UK, including safe transport, fast-tracked visas and emergency medical care.
And they condemned Israel’s ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza, calling it ‘a breach of internationally recognised norms’.
They said ministers must press for immediate, independent and unrestricted access for journalists to report on the war, the humanitarian crisis and the conduct of military operations.
The current conflict in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s brutal invasion of Israel on October 7 2023, when 1,189 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage into Gaza.
The MPs also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and support for international efforts to collect evidence for future prosecutions of those involved in hostage-taking and war crimes.
