Ministers are continuing to resist calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East but the UK is “reliant on” a humanitarian pause in the conflict to get support into the region, the Education Secretary has said.
Gillian Keegan said the Government needs to “ensure” that there is a break in fighting in order to get aid into Gaza and allow British citizens to leave the bombarded 25-mile strip.
UK Border Force teams are set up in Egypt to help if the Rafah border crossing is opened up for people to leave.
Israel has only in recent days agreed to allow aid into the country through the crossing, having besieged the Hamas-ruled area, preventing essentials such as water, food and fuel from reaching more than two million Palestinians.
Cairo has reportedly blamed Israeli bombings around Rafah for it not being open for foreign nationals to pass through as the country continues its fightback against Hamas’s deadly assault on October 7.
Asked why ministers would not call for a cessation of violence, Ms Keegan told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the Government would not want to “cross that line of telling Israel it has anything but the right to defend itself”.
“Hamas have created this situation and Hamas are now embedding themselves in the Palestinian population,” she said.
The minister said that facilitating any humanitarian pause would in itself be “very difficult” and the UK would be “reliant on” it being observed.
“It’s operationally very difficult and that’s why we’ve sent a plane-load of aid, it’s why we’ve sent Border Force, it’s why we’ve got people there, our International Development Secretary has been working with a lot of people in the region to make sure that we’re prepared to be able to get this aid to the right place,” she said.
“But yes, we’re reliant on there being a pause and the pause being observed.”
More than 80 MPs and have urged the Government to call for a cessation of violence.
Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced on Friday he is also calling for a ceasefire as the humanitarian crisis looks set to “deteriorate even further”.
But the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters a ceasefire would “only benefit Hamas”.
The Foreign Office is in contact with around 200 UK nationals in Gaza, the Prime Minister said.
It comes as the Israeli military launched a second ground raid in Gaza in as many days, striking targets on the outskirts of Gaza City.
More than 7,000 Palestinians have already been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and an even greater loss of life could come in the event of a full invasion aimed at crushing Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and survived four previous wars with Israel.
More than 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians, were killed during the initial Hamas attack, and Hamas also holds hundreds of hostages, according to the Israeli government.
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