LABOUR’S Gaza crisis has deepened after Imran Hussain became the party’s first front-bencher to resign over its backing for Israeli aggression, as Commons pressure mounted on the government to back a ceasefire.
Mr Hussain, who was shadow spokesman for a new deal for working people, told Labour leader Keir Starmer that he could no longer sit on the front bench in “good conscience.”
The Bradford East MP added: “Over recent weeks, it has become clear that my view on the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza differs substantially from the position you have adopted.
“A ceasefire is essential to ending the bloodshed, to ensuring that enough aid can pass into Gaza and reach those most in need, and to help ensure the safe return of the Israeli hostages.”
His letter also condemned previous comments by Mr Starmer in a radio interview that Israel had the right to cut off water, food and power to the Gaza strip.
Sir Keir’s authority on the issue has suffered since, despite belated efforts to walk back his comments, with resignations taking place across the party.
ANTI-WAR and pro-Palestinian groups are defying Metropolitan Police calls to postpone a demonstration demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that they have planned for Armistice Day.
Thousands of protesters are expected to descend onto central London once again this weekend as Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinian territory continues.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak heaped further pressure on Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley yesterday to ban Friday’s protest, claiming that it would be “provocative and disrespectful.”
The Met urged the march organisers to “urgently reconsider” their plans, but it has not yet formally requested the power to ban the event under section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986.
The Act would only apply if there was a threat of “serious public disorder” that could not be controlled by other measures.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue.”
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk declared Wednesday that “the collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts… to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.”
Israel’s monthlong war on Gaza has killed over 10,500 Palestinians, wounded thousands more, displaced 70% of the strip’s 2.3 million residents, and decimated civilian infrastructure, including homes, religious buildings, and hospitals.
Türk’s comments came after he visited the Rafah border crossing that connects Egypt to Gaza, which he described as “the gates to a living nightmare—a nightmare where people have been suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for food, for electricity and fuel.”
Long before October 7, when a Hamas-led attack killed over 1,400 Israelis and triggered Israel’s retaliation, Gaza was “described as the world’s biggest open-air prison… under a 56-year occupation and a 16-year blockade by Israel,” he highlighted.
“Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, but also regionally.”
The U.N. rights chief also stressed that “the atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups… were heinous, brutal, and shocking. They were war crimes—as is the continued holding of hostages.” Israeli officials say there are about 240 hostages.
“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue,” he warned. “Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, but also regionally.”
Türk emphasized that “parties to the conflict have the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects,” and as an occupying power, Israel is required “to ensure a maximum of basic necessities of life can reach all who need it.”
“I call—as a matter of urgency—for the parties now to agree [to] a cease-fire on the basis of three critical human rights imperatives: We need urgent delivery of massive levels of humanitarian aid, throughout Gaza,” he declared.
The official also called for all hostages to be freed without condition and said that “crucially, we need to enable the political space to implement a durable end to the occupation, based on the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination and their legitimate security interests.”
People in #Gaza are suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, food, electricity & fuel. @volker_turk calls on parties to agree to a ceasefire on the basis of key human rights imperatives: https://t.co/5z0WW6Rdjupic.twitter.com/mdde76rapL
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres—who has also been pushing for a cease-fire—called out Israel’s aerial and ground operations for their impact on civilians during a Reuters conference on Wednesday.
“There are violations by Hamas when they have human shields. But when one looks at the number of civilians that were killed with the military operations, there is something that is clearly wrong,” he said.
“We have in a few days in Gaza thousands and thousands of children killed, which means there is also something clearly wrong in the way military operations are being done,” the U.N. leader added.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the Israeli war against Hamas has killed over 4,300 children.
“It is also important to make Israel understand that it is against the interests of Israel to see every day the terrible image of the dramatic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said. “That doesn’t help Israel in relation to the global public opinion.”
While French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to hold a Gaza-focused “humanitarian conference” in Paris on Thursday, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to participate in the event.
Ahead of the conference, 13 human rights and relief groups called on attendees “to do everything in their power to achieve an immediate cease-fire; take concrete steps to free civilian hostages and protect all civilian populations; and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and respect for international humanitarian law.”
Among them was Amnesty International—which, over the past month, has compiled “damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families.” Some global experts and critics have demanded action from the International Criminal Court on “escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.
In a resignation letter to Türk last month, Craig Mokhiber, who was serving as the New York director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned Israel’s war as “a textbook case of genocide.”
“In the immediate term,” Mokhiber wrote, “we must work for an immediate cease-fire and an end to the long-standing siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the U.N.’s political offices.”
Shadow minister Imran Hussain quits Labour front bench over Starmer’s failure to call for a ceasefire in Gaza
“Over recent weeks, it has become clear that my view on the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza differs substantially from the position you have adopted.”
…
Labour leader Keir Starmer has so far resisted calls for a ceasefire from within his own party, including from members of his shadow cabinet as well as from the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham. The Labour leader said that the terrorist group Hamas would be “emboldened” by a ceasefire, four weeks after it killed 1,400 people in Israel.
Announcing his resignation on X, formerly Twitter, Hussain wrote in his letter: “Over recent weeks, it has become clear that my view on the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza differs substantially from the position you have adopted.
“A ceasefire is essential to ending the bloodshed, to ensuring that enough aid can pass into Gaza and reach those most in need, and to help ensure the safe return of the Israeli hostages.”
He added that the cutting of food, water, power, and medicine to Palestinians in Gaza is an act of collective punishment that violates international law and is a ‘clear war crime’.
Over 26,000 people have been injured and around 1.5 million displaced out of a total population of 2.3 million since Israel started its war on Gaza on October 7. Israeli forces have also killed over 150 people in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The debris following an Israeli airstrike in Jabalya. Photo: Quds News Network
Gaza faced yet another communications black out on Monday, November 6 even as reports emerged of Israeli planes bombing more residential areas and killing dozens of civilians on the 31st day of its war.
On Sunday night and on Monday morning, Israeli forces bombed over 450 Palestinian locations in the besieged Palestinian territory, killing dozens of Palestinians, including children and women.
The total number of Palestinians killed has crossed the 10,000 mark and over 26,000 have been injured in Israel’s indiscriminate bombings and ground offensive. Over 1,000 Palestinians are also reported missing and are likely to be buried in the debris created by Israel’s war planes targeting residential areas, hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says the confirmed number of Palestinians murdered by Israel since the beginning of the Israeli genocide campaign in Gaza has climbed to 9,770, with thousands of people, including children, missing.#GazaGenocide#ceasefireInGazaNOWpic.twitter.com/hZXQHbv5YH
Israel has also launched a ground offensive inside Gaza. Its forces claimed on Monday that they have divided the besieged Palestinian territory into two. They also repeated their ultimatum asking all residents to leave northern Gaza.
66 Palestinians were reportedly killed when Israel bombed residential buildings in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawayida in central Gaza on Monday.
Internet services and telecommunications shut down in Gaza for the third time since October 7. Israel on Monday once again disrupted the power supply to Al-Shifa hospital. The largest hospital in Gaza has faced repeated attacks in its vicinity and is running out of fuel, medicine, and space, caused both by the Israeli blockade and due to the surge in the number of patients.
There are over 40,000 people seeking refuge in the hospital at the moment according to Al-Jazeera.
More killed in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
Israeli occupation forces have also killed 155 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, two of them on Monday.
One of the Palestinians killed was just 16 years old. Israel alleged that he attacked two of their soldiers, wounding them seriously with a knife before he was shot dead, Wafa reported.
Over 70 other Palestinians were arrested from different parts of the occupied West Bank by Israeli occupation forces in late night raids conducted on Sunday and early morning on Monday.
The arrested include activist Ahed Tamimi who was arrested from her house near Ramallah in a raid.
Israeli forces detain non-violent resistance icon Ahed Tamimi. In ‘18 Israeli forces detained her after she slapped an Israeli soldier harassing her in her home after her cousin was shot in the head. Her father was detained a week ago. Israel has detained 2000+ 🇵🇸s in past month https://t.co/4s2vphQ0Rt
On Sunday evening, an Israeli drone attacked a car in southern Lebanon, killing three children and injuring an elderly woman, Al-Mayadeen reported.
Hezbollah responded to the death of Lebanese children by firing rockets inside a northern Israeli town killing at least one person.
Blinken threatened countries and groups in the region against any attempts to intervene in the war in Gaza. The US also announced the deployment of a nuclear submarine in the region on Monday.
The US has already increased the presence of its armed forces in the region following Israeli aggression in Gaza and has supplied armaments to Israel for the war.
