While the news from the Middle East is understandably now focussing on the horrors unfolding in Lebanon and the real threat of tit for tat strikes between Israel and Iran escalating into a full scale regional war, please do not forget the agony which people in Gaza and the West Bank continue to endure. So if you watch nothing else online today, please look this short video of an American doctor …
A few days ago, on the anniversary of the pogrom that took place on October 7th last year, Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, of which I am an Executive member, published this statement. It reflects my personal thoughts too.
In June 2023, I visited a hospital in Nablus a few hours after it had been surrounded by Israeli troops. The attacks that have been launched on on West Bank towns, villages and refugee camps this week are a big escalation but they are still part of a pattern that has been going on for years. In a statement about the Israeli military assaults in the West Bank, UN Secretary General, Antonio …
A United Nations delegation has made it into northern Gaza. They made a video on their way in and it is now circulating on social media. It is hard for me to come to terms with the fact that this is the same part of Gaza that I visited last summer. I probably drove in on the same road.
Labour says it will listen to its supporters’ concerns over Gaza. Now it must show it understands what that means. (An extract from an article originally published by Labour List.)
Middle East Eye is reporting that Israel intends to set up checkpoints around Rafah to separate Palestinian men “of military age” from their families. It brings back haunting memories about what happened in Srebrenica in 1995.
I was Labour Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield between 1992 and 2019 and a former Shadow Transport Minister. I now chair Healthwatch in Birmingham and Solihull, and the West Midlands Board of Remembering Srebrenica. I also work as a public affairs consultant. I am an effective community advocate and stakeholder alliance builder with a passion for human rights. I am a trustee of the Balfour Project charity and of Citizens Advice Birmingham, and a former Chair of Medical Aid for Palestinians.