By IRNA,
London : British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says that he intends to take up the humanitarian situation in Gaza caused by nearly three years of Israeli blockade with the Zionist regime when he visits the Middle East next week.
“I will certainly discuss the situation in Gaza with the Israeli Government. We have discussed the situation of the Gazan MPs in the House (of Commons) before, and I will certainly raise that, too,” Miliband said.
Answering questions in parliament on Tuesday, he also said that he would also take up the issue raised that “the behaviour of the Israeli military corps in Gaza is damaging Israel’s reputation and makes the prospect of a peace settlement yet more remote.” The foreign secretary confirmed that he had not had talks with the Israelis about the “huge number of children who are held without charge in Israeli jails, against the Geneva convention and outside the occupied territories” but said he would also take up the issue.
Last week, he warned a meeting of the Labour Friends of Israel lobby groups that Palestinians feel “cheated and abused and that the grandiose peace promise is a screen to cover continued settlement expansion, house demolition, land confiscation and the daily indignities of occupation.”
British MPs have repeatedly told Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government that the UK, as a High Contracting Party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, had a “particular responsibility” to ensure Israel’s compliance as an occupying power with humanitarian law.
In the past, the UK government has refused to condemn Israel’s inhumane siege of Gaza, by implicitly supporting the Zionist regime in insisting that it is a security issue.