PRESS RELEASE : UK announces new aid support for Gaza on Foreign Secretary visit to Middle East [January 2024]
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 25 January 2024.
The UK and Qatar are working together to get more aid into Gaza.
The Foreign Secretary has announced that the UK and Qatar are working together to get more aid into Gaza, with our first joint consignment containing 17 tonnes of family sized tents being flown today [Thurs 25th].
On the visit, the Foreign Secretary will witness first-hand both the UK and Qatar’s humanitarian aid being loaded onto a plane destined for Egypt, after which it will go by road to Gaza. The tents will provide critical shelter for people and are desperately needed, as more families are displaced by the conflict and a cold winter continues.
Foreign Secretary David Cameron said:
The scale of suffering in Gaza is unimaginable. More must be done, faster, to help people trapped in this desperate situation. We have trebled our assistance for Gaza, and cooperation with partners like Qatar is helping move life-saving aid and equipment over the border to those living in devastation.
But our efforts will only make a difference if aid gets to those who need it most, which is why we need more access for UN staff. As I said to PM Netanyahu yesterday, far more trucks need to be able to enter Gaza and more crossings need to open. We need an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out, followed by a sustainable ceasefire, without a return to hostilities.
The UK has trebled its assistance and is continuing working with partners like Qatar to provide life-saving aid and equipment.
With reports of 9 out of 10 people in Gaza living on less than a meal a day in northern Gaza, our focus must be on practical solutions to save lives.
The Foreign Secretary pushed Israeli leaders for Ashdod to be used for the delivery of life-saving aid into Gaza on his visit to the region. The UK and its partners efforts can only make a difference if they can reach those in urgent need.
Israel must take steps, working with other partners including the UN and Egypt, to significantly increase the flow of aid into Gaza including allowing prolonged humanitarian pauses, opening more routes into Gaza and fully restoring water, fuel and electricity supplies.
The Foreign Secretary’s Representative for Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mark Bryson-Richardson, is based in the region and is working intensively to address the blockages preventing more aid reaching Gaza.
