FAO: Gillian Keegan, Nick Gibb, Robert Halfon.

On October 17th you sent a letter to school leaders advising them on how to deal with the war in Israel/Palestine.

The following statement was the basis of your position: “following the barbaric terrorist attacks in Israel, we are writing to provide advice for schools and colleges. The UK unequivocally condemns these terrorist attacks and stands in solidarity with Israel in its hour of need.”

The scale of the attack by Hamas on October 7th, is taken to be reason enough to give Israel a blank cheque in its response. But, if you look at the history, this is revealed to be blatantly one sided on your part.

You must be aware that the IDF invaded and bombed Gaza seven times between 2006 and 2022, and in two of these operations the Palestinian casualties were greater than the 1200 suffered in Israel on Oct 7th.

• Operation Cast Lead (in 2008) killed 1400.

• Operation Protective Edge (in 2014) killed 2,100.
• The current attack has killed over 14,000. Why do none of these amount to an “hour of need” for the Palestinians, in your view?

If you want a lesson in barbarism, consider the punitive Israeli air strike on Gaza in 2008, which took place at 11:20 in the morning, just as the morning and afternoon shifts in schools changed over, ensuring the maximum number of children in the streets when the bombs were dropping.

But, even if you want to start the clock on October 7th, does the impact on children of this current offensive not register with you?

Before the bombing started again on Dec 1st, over six thousand children had been killed according to the UN. This is probably an underestimate. According to the official Israeli death list, thirty three children were killed in the Hamas raid on Oct 7th. If you work it out, that’s one hundred and eighty one Palestinian children killed, so far, for every Israeli child.

Why does this not yet weight heavier with you? We should note that 63 further children have been killed by settlers and the IDF in the West Bank since October 7th, where attacks have been running at an average of five a day, and thousands of olive trees have been uprooted.

To make these statistics more graspable for you. 6,000 dead children is equivalent to

• fifty two Aberfan disasters,
• or three hundred and seventy five Dunblane massacres.

How can you not grasp the horrific scale of this?

Seven to eight hundred children, two schools full, have had to have limbs amputated. Some of them multiple limbs. Many of them without anaesthetic. Imagine your child going through that.

61% of the population of Gaza is now displaced, about half of them children, with 46,000 homes totally destroyed and more than 243,000 damaged. Imagine that in your neighbourhood. Some of us can’t help but do so.

No children are going to school. They are too busy trying to survive.

51% of education facilities have been bombed.

Children have been writing their names on their arms or legs in case they are killed.

Doctors have had to write WCNSF (Wounded Child, No Surviving Family) on children’s case notes; where they have been able to treat them at all, as 26 hospitals and 55 health care facilities are out of service from bombing and lack of resources.

Children are being denied water, sanitation, health care. Lice are endemic. There have been more than 30,000 cases of diarrhea in children under five, the historic child killer in the Global South. Cholera, measles, chicken pox, typhus are all looming; and the WHO was warning that more would die from malnutrition and disease in the coming weeks even than in the bombing so far, even if it stopped, without a qualitative increase in aid starting now.

Instead, the bombing has started again, making the aid impossible, guaranteeing a horrific escalation in deaths even from what we’ve seen so far.

This is the consequence of standing with Israel.

So, for you, is this still Israel’s “hour of need”, are these attacks barbaric enough for you to condemn them, will you withdraw your advice to school leaders and stand with humanity and the global majority that is calling for a permanent ceasefire now?