---

Middle East

I do not have the exact statistics month by month, but I am sure that they will be available. None the less, many families in the north of Israel had to spend significant parts of their daily lives in bomb shelters during the conflict. Israel faced a serious problem that required it to respond, and I should like the Minister to concentrate on the way in which that problem developed. I say that because, in playing its future role, the UN will be crucial in helping to move forward positively with a progressive solution to that problem. As a result of the blanket media coverage of the Lebanese side, we know of the huge number of victims of the war on that side. There were more than 1,000 dead, and many more were injured and maimed for life. We know less about the dead and injured on the Israeli side because there was not the same coverage, but there were dead and many hundreds of injured. More than 800 people suffered shock and 300,0000 were displaced from their homes in northern Israel. We therefore know that there was suffering on both sides, and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight acknowledged that. Let us look at how the situation developed. We know the history of Hezbollah, how the organisation developed and what its purpose is, and we know that Israel withdrew in 2000. Organisations such as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have openly acknowledged, as late as March 2006, that they receive funding, arms, training and support from Hezbollah. If the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are not on the UK’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations, why are they not? Are the Government considering proscribing them? I turn now to the role of the UN in Lebanon. When it was created in 1978, its role was to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, restore international peace and security and assist the Lebanese Government in restoring their authority in southern Lebanon. In 2000, the UN was able to confirm that it had carried out the first of those three roles, but it failed singularly to carry out the other two. I would argue that in 2000 the UN was able to confirm the first of those three roles, but I believe that it failed signally to carry out the other two. That failure enabled Hezbollah to grow and develop, and to take such a deep hold in the community in south Lebanon that it was effectively a state within a state, operating its own social security system and almost its own system of taxation. That was a problem for Lebanon as much as for Israel. We now have a United Nations force with a new mandate, which has been enhanced. The force has been enhanced, but the new mandate, which includes monitoring the cessation of hostilities, also includes accompanying and supporting Lebanese armed forces as they deploy into south Lebanon. The delegation of which I was a member met officers of the Israel defence forces who were responsible for part of the border area and had been involved in the conflict. We were taken to see the border and we listened to both Palestinian and Israeli voices about the conflict. The officers told us that they could see the development of Hezbollah positions on the northern side of the Israeli border. They could see arms being cached in those positions and the training that was going on across the border. In some instances they could observe that with the naked eye, because the positions were only yards from the border. When they drew those things to the attention of the United Nations patrols they were told, ““We know. We see it too, but there is nothing that we can do. All that we can do is watch and monitor.”” It cannot be imagined that a British Government, in a similar situation, with a similar direct threat to their people, would not feel the same tremendous degree of threat that Israel felt in those circumstances. We have seen the conflict, and we all have our views about how it arose. We must accept that, the conflict having taken place, the best way forward now is to discuss how the UN role should develop. In future years will there be a UN force that performs a similar mandate? If that happens, it will lead to the risk of exactly the same circumstances developing in the future.