Immediate ceasefire needed in Gaza, Tory MPs tell Sunak and Cameron
Ten Tory MPs have voiced their “dismay” at the UK’s decision to abstain on a UN resolution last week calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The group of MPs, which includes former Cabinet ministers Kit Malthouse and George Eustice and ex-Foreign Office minister Vicky Ford, noted that “most of our allies such as France, Canada and Australia” voted in support of the resolution, which expressed “grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population”.
153 countries backed the symbolic call, while 10 voted against including Israel and the United States, and 23 abstained including the UK.
In a letter to Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, the MPs said: “The case for a ceasefire seems to us to be unanswerable with many thousands of civilians dead and injured, and close to two million forcibly displaced.
“As the Palestinian population is kettled into ever smaller areas, disease is spreading, and starvation is imminent. By any measure, we are witnessing a catastrophe of precisely the kind the 1949 Geneva Conventions were supposed to prevent.
“As such, it is unconscionable that we should make Gaza an exception to the rules and obligations those accords created.”
They said they had “privately expressed our anguish and dismay at the position taken” by the Government, adding: “It is increasingly clear that the Israeli military strategy is neither proportionate nor targeted and there is no serious prospect of success, whatever that might mean”.
They added that peace “can only be achieved through politics and diplomacy and the establishment of two states,” calling for an immediate ceasefire to forge a “new political reality”.
In addition to Mr Malthouse, Mr Eustice and Ms Ford, the letter is signed by ex-ministers Philip Dunne, Mark Garnier, David Jones and Kelly Tolhurst, and backbenchers Paul Bristow, Flick Drummond and Derek Thomas.
Meanwhile, Tory MP Alicia Kearns, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, said she believes Israel has “gone beyond self-defence” and lost the moral authority in the two months since the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October.
“International humanitarian law in my view has been broken,” she said, adding that a truce that could be turned into a lasting ceasefire should be pursued, rather than a focus on the eradication of Hamas.
She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “Hamas is an ideology which recruits into its membership. Bombs don’t obliterate an ideology and neither can a stable state be constructed from oblivion.”
It follows an intervention from former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who warned Mr Netanyahu’s actions in response to the Hamas attack were “radicalising Muslim youth across the globe”.
He said he was not “calling for a ceasefire with Hamas”, but instead that Israel “needs to stop this crude and indiscriminate method of attack”.
A vote in the UN Security Council, which carries more weight than the resolution passed last week by the general assembly, is set to go ahead on Tuesday. The US is able to veto resolutions at the Security Council, however, meaning that Joe Biden must be brought onside.
On Monday, Mr Sunak said a “sustainable ceasefire” was needed, in a dramatic shift in tone from the Government – which just weeks ago had seen Cabinet ministers strongly condemning calls for a ceasefire.
“Israel obviously has a right to defend itself against what was an appalling terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas, but it must do that in accordance with humanitarian law,” the Prime Minister said.
“It’s clear that too many civilian lives have been lost and nobody wants to see this conflict go on a day longer than it has to.
“And that’s why we’ve been consistent – and I made this point in Parliament last week – in calling for a sustainable ceasefire, whereby hostages are released, rockets stopped being fired into Israel by Hamas and we continue to get more aid in.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer echoed the language, stressing the need “to get to a sustainable ceasefire as quickly as possible”.
“It will have to be a political process, to a two-stage solution which, in the end, is the only way that this is going to be resolved,” he said.
Downing Street said Israel and the UK had been clear that Hamas “has no future in Gaza” given the horrific events of 7 October.
But the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) should do more to ensure its campaign is targeted on Hamas leaders and operatives.
“But of course, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that Hamas deliberately puts Palestinian civilians at risk by embedding themselves in the civilian population and, of course, seizing dozens of hostages which they could release at any point.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration is facing mounting international concern over the scale of civilian casualties.
Israel has flattened much of northern Gaza and driven 85 per cent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million from their homes.
