It has been a truism across so many of today’s speeches that we have a universal desire for the violence to stop, and for it to stop immediately. The only question that exercises us in this Chamber today is, what is the most effective method to achieve that immediate cessation of violence?
I will do the SNP the courtesy of addressing its motion. This is an SNP debate, and it is that party’s motion that is important. However, as has been referred to multiple times today, the SNP motion makes no reference at all to the Hamas attack on 7 October last year. It makes no reference to the stated intention of Hamas to repeat atrocities again and again, similar to and worse than that which was achieved on 7 October. We know that removing Hamas from Gaza—again, something that the SNP motion makes no reference to—is the only way to stop civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, from being killed. If we address only half of the issue, we will condemn any ceasefire to failure and bring about a renewed cycle of killing time and time again and a repetition of that appalling history of violence.
The most important thing for people in the region right now is an immediate cessation of violence, which will be achieved through a humanitarian pause. Such a pause would stop the fighting, get the aid in and allow for the hostages to come out. It is not delayed by the wider ceasefire negotiations—those are inevitable, because this is a complex matter—but it makes space for those negotiations to take place. Those negotiations are going to have to deal with the release of all hostages. A one-sided ceasefire is no ceasefire at all, nor is a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in possession of their hostages.
The negotiations will also have to deal with the recreation of a Palestinian Government for both the west bank and Gaza, freeing the people of Gaza from the terror of Hamas: they terrorise not just Israelis, but Palestinians too. Crucially, the negotiations have to lead to a credible and irreversible pathway to a two-state solution. That all takes time, but the fighting needs to stop now, so the Government are absolutely right to call in their amendment for an immediate humanitarian pause to give space for ceasefire negotiations but to stop the killing now.
