Humza Yousaf urges Gaza action after family member killed
'It's impossible for me to put it into words,' Yousaf said.
'Yesterday, we received some very sad news that my father-in-law's cousin – who is only a few years older than me [and] has two children – was killed by the Israeli forces trying to get flour.
READ MORE: Israel 'threatens to stop aid flights if media film Gaza from the sky'
'His family begged him not to go to get food, but he couldn't bare to see his family starving, so he went go get flour.'
Yousaf was visibly upset as he felt he had to point out that his in-law was 'not Hamas', nor a 'terrorist'.
He described how Israeli forces 'shot him in the stomach' before running over his body with a tank.
The former First Minister went on to detail how his father-in-law was 'inconsolable with grief' when he made contact.
Councillor Nadia El-Nakla's cousin – whom she wrote about in The National just last week – was mentioned in the interview, with Yousaf saying her children had become 'emaciated' as a result of the forced starvation in Gaza.
'I feel helpless', he said.
'Choked with pain when I think of [how] they're in pain. How can we possibly imagine what a Gazan mother or father must be going through, when they themselves are starving and watching their children become skeletons?
Yousaf pleaded with people to think about Gaza 'as a father, a mother, or just a human being'.
READ MORE: SNP and Greens condemn Starmer's conditional stance on Palestine statehood
'We must do everything in our gift to stop this atrocity. That's why I plead with the Prime Minister – and I use that word, I plead with the Prime Minister – to take meaningful action.
'Sanctions, end all arms sales to Israel. Not necessarily for geopolitical reasons, but because I want to see an end to the inhumanity we're all witnessing.'
His comments come as Keir Starmer announced the UK Government would recognise the state of Palestine in September if Israel committed to a two-state solution.
Starmer's move has been widely criticised for it's conditional nature, with the SNP and the Scottish Greens both urging that recognition of Palestine must not be 'conditional'.
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