Wes Streeting – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Israeli counterpart on the demolition of Bedouin homes at Jabal Al-Baba in East Jerusalem.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

We condemn the demolition of Bedouin homes at Jabal Al-Baba, which is a particularly vulnerable community in East Jerusalem. We are extremely concerned at the large increase in demolitions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since the start of 2016, compared to the monthly average in 2015. The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) has not specifically discussed this issue with his counterpart. However, our Embassy in Tel Aviv continues to raise our concern about demolitions regularly with the Israeli authorities, most recently on 15 May. We call on Israel to provide a legal route for Palestinians to obtain building permits.