Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:23 pm on 5 February 2026.
Warinder Juss
Labour, Wolverhampton West
4:23,
5 February 2026
I thank my hon. Friend for his Intervention.
It seems quite clear that the reason the licences have been revoked is to prevent aid from going through, which leads to the assumption, at least, that there might be a risk of genocide taking place.
The UN genocide convention requires states
“to prevent and to punish” genocide. I will repeat the definition in article II of the convention, which is that genocide is any act
“committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”—
I emphasise the words “in whole or in part”—
“a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
We cannot stand by and pretend that it is for an international court to decide whether or not genocide has occurred in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and we cannot turn a blind eye as innocent Palestinian people continue to suffer. We are fortunate to have enough distinguished lawyers in this House to decide whether there is at least a risk of genocide having occurred and to conduct that risk assessment, as has been requested in this debate. When do we decide that enough is enough? When do we decide that enough innocent people have been killed and enough suffering has occurred for us to consider that an ally of ours, Israel, may be committing genocide under international law, and to take decisive, concrete action to prevent that genocide by the Israeli Government?
An intervention is when the MP making a speech is interrupted by another MP and asked to 'give way' to allow the other MP to intervene on the speech to ask a question or comment on what has just been said.