Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Office – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 19 February 2008.
Kim Howells
Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office
2:30,
19 February 2008
I certainly do not agree with my right hon. Friend that there is not a dialogue proceeding: I believe that there is one, and I am glad to see it happening. I agree with him that the images that we all saw on our televisions of Palestinians living in Gaza smuggling food back into the Gaza strip was a revelation that told us a lot about the situation inside Gaza and the desperate circumstances of its people. But as my hon. Friend Mrs. Ellman pointed out, the difficulty is that while food and other requirements are being smuggled in, so are arms. As Mr. Streeter said, the people who are suffering as a consequence are the Palestinians living in Gaza, because they suffer from the blockades and the retaliation against those extremists who fire rockets and mortar rounds into Israel.