UK government has failed Palestinian people, says senior Labour MP

Tents housing displaced Palestinian families at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza this week. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Tents housing displaced Palestinian families at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza this week. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images UK government has failed Palestinian people, says senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry criticises Israel’s ‘staggering’ sense of impunity and rebukes Donald Trump for abandoning Gaza The UK government has let the Palestinian people down and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry , has said. She accused her own government of lacking ambition and wringing its hands on the Palestinian crisis, and she also chastised Donald Trump for declaring a ceasefire in Gaza and then walking away, leaving Gazans to live in rubble. Thornberry has never been this critical of the government’s Middle East policy before and her remarks may find resonance in a potential Labour leadership contest that has so far included little mention of foreign policy. She said the significant decision taken more than eight months ago to recognise Palestine as a state should have been only the first step of many but nothing further had been done since to help bring about a two-state solution. Thornberry said: “We knew and we have to remember that recognition was only the first step. Where is the second step, where is the tenth step, what are we doing? “Anyone who believes that what Gazans have right now is a genuine ceasefire has to look at what the truth is. They need to look at the pictures of the children who have been bitten by rats as they sleep in displacement camps in mountains of rubble. “More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, but we also know that the death toll continues to rise during this so-called ceasefire. Over 700 have been killed in Gaza since Donald Trump proclaimed ‘the greatest moment in humanity’.” Pointing out that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, had announced last week that Israel intended to take over 70% of Gaza , Thornberry said: “The sense of impunity is staggering.” She said: “I have always been so proud that Britain has always realised the importance of international law. It is something we are strong on, probably for good reason since much of international law was written by British lawyers. But when it comes to our record on Palestine , I am afraid we have fallen well short and in doing so we have failed the Palestinian people.” View image in fullscreen Emily Thornberry is the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian Speaking at an event in Westminster on Monday night convened by Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Council on Arab-British Understanding, she said it was now 682 days since the international court of justice published its advisory opini