Speaking to the Guardian she said:
I remain frustrated that while the government’s words and tone have changed, in terms of concrete actions, not much has changed.”
She called on the government to recognise a Palestinian state, which would "safeguard Palestinian interests and also send a very clear signal to Israel that there are consequences to their actions". She also condemned the government for allowing trade from illegal settlements and for "still arming Israel when they shouldn’t be".
The report goes on to detail the suffering of the family of Mohammad, an NHS doctor who operated on her last year and whose elderly parents remain stuck in northern Gaza.
He describes conditions on the ground as a "slaughterhouse" and says people are on the brink of starvation.
Layla told the Guardian:
"Starvation shouldn’t be a weapon of war and it is unbearably cruel that it’s got to the levels of destitution that Mohammad’s family are describing, but their story is just one of millions that are now trapped in northern Gaza in a situation that seems even worse than at the beginning.
"It has to stop now and the UK government needs to redouble its efforts to make that happen."
The problem is, how do you get food to the civilians of Gaza? You can’t just send it in in aid trucks, because if you do it is all stolen by Hamas and used to feed their soldiers.
ReplyDeleteSo how do you suggest?
What Tom Fletcher, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, said a couple of days ago, is ""We have the people. We have the distribution networks. We have the trust of the communities on the ground. And we have the aid itself – 160,000 pallets of it – ready to move. Now," he said. "We demand rapid, safe, and unimpeded aid delivery for civilians in need. Let us work." https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-aid-chief-lets-not-waste-time-with-us-backed-gaza-aid-plan-2025-05-16/. So I think letting the UN get on with aid distribution is probably better than any suggestion by anonymous commentators on a blog!
ReplyDelete‘We have the trust of the communities on the ground’ sounds ominous to me. What does that mean? Do they gave the trust of Hamas? What did it take to gain that trust? Was it an assurance that they would turn a blind eye while Hamas plundered the aid trucks, or used them to smuggle in weapons?
DeleteNothing in that UN statement reassures me that they have a plan to make sure that any food and medicines that go in will go to civilians and not be used by Hamas to feed and treat their soldiers.
Well Tom Fletcher is a named identifiable person, and you're anonymous, so I don't think we need pursue this.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
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