Starmer: Britain will evacuate children from Gaza
The Prime Minister said the starvation inflicted by Israel on Palestinians is 'absolutely horrifying' and suggested that the Government could start airlifting the worst affected children to Britain.
'I know the British people are sickened by what is happening. The images of starvation and desperation in Gaza are utterly horrifying,' Mr Starmer said.
'We are urgently accelerating efforts to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance – bringing more Palestinian children to the UK for specialist medical treatment,' he added in the article for the Daily Mirror.
It came as the World Food Programme (WFP) said that one in three Gazans have gone without any food for days, as France, Germany and the UK all demanded that Israel 'immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid.'
'Nearly one person in three is not eating for days. Malnutrition is surging, with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment,' the WFP said in a statement. Palestinians are now collapsing in the street and 'wasting away' from mass starvation, a group of 100 NGOs said.
Another charity, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), warned that Israel was using 'starvation as a weapon' as part of its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, launched in response to the October 7 Hamas massacre.
The MSF said that 25 per cent of young people and pregnant women in Gaza were malnourished, as it strongly criticised food distribution by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
'Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head,' said Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF's deputy medical coordinator in Gaza.
According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 people had been killed by Israeli troops in the vicinity of the purpose-built distribution sites. The Israeli military says it 'categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians' and is investigating the deaths.
In his article for the Mirror, Mr Starmer went on to demand that Hamas release the hostages currently held in Gaza and called for a two-state solution to the conflict, including UK recognition of a state of Palestine.
'The denial of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people – to children and babies – is completely unjustifiable. So is the continued captivity of the hostages. And so is Israel's disproportionate military escalation in Gaza,' the Prime Minister wrote.
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