PRIME Minister Keir Starmer has said that he does not believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The Labour leader’s comments came as he responded to a challenge from independent MP Ayoub Khan during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
Khan raised comments from Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who in late October claimed that the term genocide referred to “when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War in the Holocaust” and that using it to describe Gaza “now undermines [its] seriousness”.
The independent MP told the Commons: “Article two of the United Nations Genocide Convention makes it explicitly clear that genocide is not about numbers, it's about intent.
“The intent of the Israeli government and the IDF has been explicitly clear in words and in actions over the past 400 days, more than 45,000 innocent men, women and children killed.
“On October 28, the Foreign Secretary denied that a genocide was even taking place and suggested that the Israeli army had not yet killed enough Palestinians to constitute a genocide.
“And last week at PMQs, the Prime Minister started that he has never referred to the atrocities happening in Gaza as a genocide.
“Will the Prime Minister share his definition of genocide with this House? And will he state what further action he's prepared to take to save lives of desperate and starving men, women and children given that we now hold the presidency of the United Nations Security Council?”
Responding, Starmer said: “It would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year.”
He added: “I'm well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I've never described this as and referred to it as genocide.”
Starmer and Lammy’s refusal to call what is happening in Gaza a genocide puts them at odds with key experts internationally.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories who is currently on a tour of the UK, has repeatedly affirmed her belief that what is happening qualifies as genocide.
Over the weekend, she said: “The horrific reality in Gaza that has steadily killed 70% of women and children (since the beginning) is a genocidal army significantly funded and supported by Western states.
“Innocent Palestinian civilians are being butchered. Starved. Rounded up, to then be executed or stripped naked, kidnapped and taken to Israeli detention centres, already known as torture centers for the Palestinians.
“In this situation, it is hard to imagine how the hostages themselves can survive. What is the world waiting to intervene?”
In June of this year, a report from the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR), a consortium of human rights centres at colleges across the world, found: “Israel has committed genocidal acts, namely killing, seriously harming, and inflicting conditions of life calculated, and intended to, bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.”
It added: “After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention.”
