David Lammy – 2024 Speech on Israeli Restrictions on Humanitarian Aid
The speech made by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, on 18 November 2024.
The situation is devastating and frankly beyond comprehension.
And is getting worse, not better.
Winter is here.
Famine is imminent.
And 400 days into this war, it is totally unacceptable that it’s harder than ever to get aid into Gaza.
In October, just 37 humanitarian trucks entered the Strip each day.
It’s the lowest average in the last year.
The situation in northern Gaza is a nightmare of disease, destruction and despair.
Over three hundred aid workers have now been killed.
It’s the highest number in UN history.
Amongst them were three British nationals, whose families yearn for justice.
More children have been killed than in any recent conflict anywhere in the world.
And meanwhile, Hamas still cruelly holds onto the hostages, including British national Emily Damari, extending their families’ torment even further.
In the West Bank, an environment of impunity exists for extremist settlers.
And since October 7th, conflict has spread, engulfing of course, Lebanon.
We must bring this multi-front conflict to an end.
There is no excuse for Hamas’ hostage taking.
They need to be set free.
There is no excuse for Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid.
They need to be lifted.
And there is no excuse for violations of international humanitarian law.
It needs to be respected – by all sides.
No excuse for malign Iranian activity, destabilising the region.
It needs to stop.
The world has failed to bring about the ceasefires so desperately needed in Gaza and Lebanon.
Failed to break the cycles of violence.
But the UK will not give up.
Not when there is so much, frankly, at stake for civilians in the region, who suffer so greatly.
But also for us all.
On and since October 7th, the nationals of at least thirty-one UN members have been killed or kidnapped in the region.
Merchant shipping, of course, has been disrupted in the Red Sea, and the entire region has been pulled to the brink of an even more devastating war.
Despite this bleak picture, we cannot let experience turn us into pessimists.
It is never too late for peace.
We need a huge huge rise in aid.
We need to respect aid workers once again.
Proper protection for civilians.
The UK has restarted our funding to UNRWA, to help those saving lives, and deliver the Colonna report.
And we’ve been consistent in our support for international law.
We’re working hard every day to bring this horrendous war to an end.
The longer fighting continues, the deeper the depths of pain, of anger, which corrode the bonds of common humanity on which a lasting peace must necessarily be built.
When the opening comes, we must be ready to seize it.
We need detailed plans for turning an immediate ceasefire into a lasting solution.
A strengthened and reformed Palestinian Authority should be at the centre of Gaza’s future recovery, security and governance.
And we’ve got to give the people of the West Bank and Gaza a political horizon, a credible, irreversible pathway to a Palestinian state.
In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181.
Ever since, the Palestinian people have been waiting, waiting for seventy-seven years for a land that they can call their own.
That wait must end.
And the Israeli people, who are still threatened by groups dedicated to their destruction, have waited too long for the peace and security promised when their nation was born.
We must not give up our pursuit of a future where all people of the region can live side by side in peaceful co-existence, including Israelis and Palestinians.
Ending the war.
Securing a lasting peace, with a two-state solution at its core.
This is what the region needs.
And this is what the world wants.
And this is what we will keep striving to achieve.
