Keir Starmer and David Lammy: You can't claim not to know that Israel is exterminating Palestinians in Gaza. Only that you are choosing not to act.

No more excuses, no more delays. The UK must end its complicity in Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians.

Israel is exterminating Palestinian life in northern Gaza. 

Yet the UK refuses to condemn it.

Israel is attacking hospitals and killing health workers.

Yet the UK refuses to end all arms sales to Israel.

Israel is starving civilians and forcibly expelling them from their homes.

The Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital (PFBS) in Gaza City has delivered crucial healthcare services across departments such as emergency, obstetrics, gynaecology, and surgery for over four decades. Since the Israeli military began systematically dismantling Gaza’s health system in October 2023, PFBS has played a critical role in providing life-saving care to Palestinians, supported by MAP.

This week, Medical Aid for Palestinians were invited to provide evidence to the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee, on the situation for healthcare in Gaza.

Professor Nizam Mamode, a volunteer surgeon for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), and Rohan Talbot, MAP’s Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, gave evidence alongside Nebal Farsakh from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Emina Ćerimović of Human Rights Watch, and Sam Rose from UNRWA.

Imagine trying to escape from airstrikes or bombing, but you can’t hear any of the sounds around you. Or trying to evacuate your home, after being forcibly displaced, across dirt and damaged roads while using a wheelchair, if you haven't already lost it under the rubble of a bombed building. Or trying to tell how dirty the water you are drinking is, but you can’t see.

Yesterday (12 December), the Israeli military issued a forced displacement order in Gaza City that impacts the MAP supported Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital (PFBS) and threatens to end advanced neo-natal care across the whole of northern Gaza.

Yesterday evening (15 December), an Israeli military airstrike hit a United Nations-run school sheltering Palestinian civilians driven from their homes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

The UK Government must take urgent action to protect healthcare workers and patients and ensure the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained medical staff, as the illegal detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, continued into its second week with no news of his whereabouts or wellbeing. 

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) staff working at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, warn that Israel’s restrictions on fuel entry are threatening the lives of critically ill children, infants and other patients.

Gaza’s largest partially functioning hospital will likely shut down within 48 hours and, without fresh fuel supplies, essential hospital operations will be forced to stop, endangering the lives of critically ill patients, including children and newborns in intensive care.

Heavy rain, strong winds and plummeting temperatures, combined with the impact of Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza, means winter is a struggle for survival for many.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) welcomes the announcement of an agreement between Israel and Hamas to suspend hostilities in Gaza. While we hope this temporary pause will save Palestinian lives and alleviate some of the suffering the Israeli military has inflicted on Gaza, it marks the beginning, not the end, of efforts to restore health, dignity and freedom to the Palestinian people.