Ministers share the “same frustrations” over the Gaza war as protesters, Wes Streeting has said.
The health secretary said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy are “working intensively” with international allies to try to bring the conflict to an end.
This includes the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza and a ceasefire – “and crucially, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state”, he said.
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Mr Streeting added: “Those of us who are in positions of power in government share all the same frustrations that the people who are marching on the streets because we want to see an end to this conflict, we want to see peace for Israelis and for Palestinians, and we want to see justice and statehood for the Palestinian people.”
He called the situation in the coastal territory “a horror show” and said the UK is working with international allies to try to get more aid into Gaza.
But, he said international leaders have not “delivered the results that we want to see”.
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On whether Israel is committing genocide, Mr Streeting said: “That’s a question for international courts to weigh up.
“Whether or not we use that term and whether or not the courts make that judgment doesn’t alter the fact that we can see with our own eyes – that innocent children are dying in great numbers.
“They are either starving or they are being bombed. And it’s not just children, it’s other innocent civilians, it’s civilian infrastructure.”
Read more:
Israeli hostages’ bodies recovered from Gaza
Hundreds of thousands in Gaza ‘catastrophically food insecure’
A new Israel and US-backed aid system launched last week was paused on Wednesday and part of Thursday after dozens of Palestinians were killed as they attempted to collect aid in southern Gaza on Tuesday.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation reopened two distribution sites on Thursday as the UN warned most of Gaza’s 2.3m population is at risk of famine after the 11-week Israeli blockade.
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Data collected by the UN from humanitarian groups found the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza has nearly tripled since a ceasefire earlier this year when aid flowed more freely than it is now.
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Around 5.8% out of nearly 50,000 children under five screened in the second half of May were diagnosed with acute malnutrition.
This was up from 4.7% in early May and nearly three times the rate in February during a pause in fighting in the 20-month war between Israel and Hamas.
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Also on Thursday, Israel announced it had recovered the bodies of two dual-nationality Israeli-American hostages in their 70s, Gadi Hagi and his wife Judy Weinstein-Hagi, who were killed in Hamas’ 7 October attack then taken to Gaza.
At least 20 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Thursday, including four journalists in a hospital, the Hamas-run local health authority said.
