Pious Projects’ Paediatric Hospital: Gaza

16. Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of supporting Pious Projects’ paediatric hospital in Gaza.

We are clear that Israel must immediately allow rapid and unhindered aid into Gaza, including desperately needed medical supplies. The UK continues to support the delivery of medical assistance through trusted partners, including UK-Med, which has completed over 500,000 patient consultations in Gaza since January 2024. We will continue to assess how we can best support those in need.

The Foreign Secretary will understand my question, because I wrote to him on 18 June asking if he would meet Dr Mohammed Mustafa, who has assembled a children’s hospital in prefabricated form in Jordan and is ready to go into Gaza. It will be able to help the 400,000 children in northern Gaza who have no access to any medical facilities at all at the moment. This is desperately urgent. Will the Minister meet Dr Mustafa to familiarise himself with the opportunity here of doing something practical and good to help desperate children in northern Gaza?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his continued engagement on these questions. We have discussed across the Dispatch Box many times the restrictions on aid getting into Gaza, including in relation to construction materials. I am very happy to take a further look at this specific proposal and see if there is anything that we can do.

The al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, which is run by the Anglican church in Jerusalem, has repeatedly been bombed. Earlier this month the hospital compound was hit, killing five people, including a father escorting his son to surgery. The Minister has spoken much about the need for aid to get in, but will he set out what concrete action he is going to take now? Saying that Israel must do something does not mean that it is going to act, so what action he is going to take to ensure that the attacks on hospitals, medics and patients ends?

I want nothing more than for the attacks on hospitals, medical personnel and aid workers to end. My hon. Friend is right that I have said many times from this Dispatch Box that I want that to be the case, yet these strikes have continued. We continue to raise these issues with the Israeli Government. We have taken a series of actions, many of which we have discussed already over the course of this morning, and we will continue to take action until things change. Until things change, this Government will not be satisfied.