UK to pledge millions more in aid for besieged Gaza Strip

The UK has pledged a further £19 million in funding for Gaza, after a minister described the situation on the ground as ‘catastrophic’.

It comes as development minister Anneliese Dodds will travel to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel as part of a three-day trip.

The fresh funding will take the UK’s total committed for the Occupied Palestinian Territories to £99 million, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said.

It also includes £12 million for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Food Programme.

Ms Dodds is expected to meet Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa and visit a refugee camp in the West Bank as part of her trip, before heading to Israel where she will hold meetings with officials and call on Israel to ensure aid can reach Gaza.

She is also expected to meet the families of UK and UK-linked hostages in Israel as the Government continues to call for hostages to be freed.

Ms Dodds said: ‘The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Gazans are in desperate need of food and shelter with the onset of winter.

‘The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis.

‘The UK is committed to supporting the region’s most vulnerable communities, pledging additional funding for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) and to supporting the Palestinian Authority reforms.

‘Israel must immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza. I will meet counterparts both in Israel and the OPTs to discuss the need to remove these impediments, bring about a ceasefire, free the hostages and find a lasting solution to the conflict.’

The UK has also exported military goods to Israel, granting licenses worth £42 million in 2022, and £18million in 2023.

A Bellingcat investigation found ‘systematic and widespread’ destruction of civilian housing and infrastructure in Gaza – which was called as ‘domicide’ by the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur.

Dr Andreas Krieg, of the School of Security Studies, King’s College London, previously told Metro.co.uk: ‘The Bellingcat investigation is highly credible.

‘The data has been carefully triangulated to show the randomness with which the IDF has been using destructive force against buildings that have already been cleared from Hamas forces and do not constitute a valid military target. 

‘This report confirms the Israeli policy of blowing up and destroying any infrastructure that is either suspected of having hosted Hamas or has any link to the public service or administration of Gaza pre-7th October.

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