---

Gaza

I beg to move,"That this House has considered the matter of Gaza." The situation in Gaza and southern Israel is a grave crisis of enormous concern to every Member of this House. The Government know that hon. Members wanted an opportunity to debate the situation and to question the Government. I am pleased that we have been able to make Government time available during the first week back to enable that to happen. Accordingly, I shall be as brief as I can to allow as many hon. Members as possible to contribute. I ask hon. Members to take account of that need when it comes to making interventions. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have all come to the House this week to reiterate the Government's determination to achieve an immediate and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza. We have been working intensively since the crisis began to end the violence but, as everyone in the House is all too well aware, the situation is not improving. The Palestinian death toll has passed 1,000—including a chilling 300 children—and dozens more rocket attacks have been fired into Israel in recent days. The conflict has had a devastating impact on innocent civilians, women and children among them. Gazans have no way of escaping the violence. They are trapped as services collapse still further, as food and medicines dwindle and violence surrounds them. But this did not begin on 27 December. For many months, rockets fired from Gaza have terrorised the citizens of southern Israel, and Gazans have lived under suffocating restrictions that have deprived them of even the basics. The Gaza ceasefire between June and December 2008 provided only a very limited lull. Over 300 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel. Over 15 Palestinians were killed as a result of Israeli action, and the humanitarian situation in Gaza continued its decline. Few were surprised when that unhappy lull finally cracked, first in November and finally with Hamas declaring it ““dead”” on 18 December, after which it fired almost 300 rockets in eight days. Hamas made a brutal choice to step up attacks against innocent civilians. Its whole ethos is one of violence. It has rejected the legitimate Palestinian Authority and ejected that authority by force from Gaza. Nothing, not the restrictions on Gaza nor its frustration with the peace process, justifies what Hamas has done and continues to do. In December, I was in Ashkelon near the Gaza border and I heard the sirens. The fear was palpable: this is daily psychological and actual warfare.