Mary Kelly Foy

I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this afternoon’s debate. In the short time I have, I want to focus on the plight of Christians in Palestine. In April, I was honoured to meet Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest at the Holy Family church in Gaza, who informed a group of MPs of the tragedies that had befallen his flock, none more so than the killing of Nahida Anton and her daughter Samar. They were two parishioners at the church who were killed inside the parish compound by a sniper; several others were wounded. It was the week before Christmas, a Christmas that for Palestinians would be observed under rubble, in ruins and in perpetual fear. Rev. Munther Isaac put that into words when he said: “If Jesus was born today, he’d be born under the rubble of Gaza.” We all know that places of worship should be protected under the Geneva conventions. I say “should be” because in this and many other instances, they are not. It is heartbreaking, then, to consider that both Nahida and Samar must have thought they were safe in church when, in fact, a sniper was targeting them. I cannot imagine what the family was going through. What happened at the Holy Family church is a microcosm of the war itself: a war where human rights are ignored, where long-standing conventions are breached and where innocent people like Nahida and Samar are killed. Earlier this year, I asked the former deputy Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), whether the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office condemned the attack. He answered: “We are not clear about the full facts of what happened.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 46.] In contrast, Cardinal Vincent, the Archbishop of Westminster, was unambiguous. He said: “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.” He also said: “The people in Gaza…are not given to tell lies.” I implore the Minister from the bottom of my heart to listen to the Palestinians in Gaza, and reflect on the bitter injustices of Nahida and Samar’s deaths and all those who have suffered similar fates. The last time I spoke about Palestine in Westminster Hall, the death toll was 25,000. It is now, as we have heard, well over 41,000. I urge the Minister to use the full weight of the FCDO to bring this war to an end, and to commit to the Palestinian people that we will assist them in rebuilding their lives. We need diplomacy, not an all-out war. The people of Gaza cannot have another Christmas under the rubble.