Stop arms sales to Israel, ceasefire now - Christine Grahame

A Palestinian child boy in the ruins of a building in Gaza City that was hit by a rocket

The rape, pillage and murder by Hamas on October 7 which precipitated the current situation was abhorrent, but the killing of 40,000 Gazans and the maiming, displacement and starvation of many more is unforgivable, unjustifiable.

At the centre is Benjamin Netanyahu and his right wing government, but many Israelis do not support his decimation of Gaza to rubble and its people to a living hell.

There are those who will support this, who want to see Gaza fully in Israeli hands, others who are kept in the dark as information is controlled by the state and others silenced if they show dissent.

The USA is weakened not only by its somewhat ambiguous position, still sending arms to Israel, as is the UK, which follows wherever the USA steps lead.

The SNP called for an end to these sales but in vain. The shuttle to-ing and fro-ing by US diplomat Anthony Blinken is a last throw of the dice for Joe Biden, desperate to have some grand finale to his tenure as President.

He wants to be remembered for peace in the Middle East and not his stumbling gait and speech. But it is not good enough for anyone of us to stand on the sidelines.

Every day the heartbreaking stories of day-old babies, entire families wiped out which the Israeli Defence Force says it will “investigate”, darken our screens.

We must not become desensitised to these atrocities. Hostages are found dead by whose hand we will never know. Israeli bombs? Hamas? War is indiscriminate.

The US is claiming a negotiated settlement is near and not for the first time. Hamas says it is not and that the US has kowtowed to Israeli demands. More spin. More dead women and children. More makeshift shrouds for makeshift graves.

Life in Gaza and the West Bank is beyond grief. So I reiterate, we may not be independent, but the Scottish Government position is firm, stalwart. Stop arms sales to Israel, ceasefire now, return hostages, free and accelerated access for humanitarian aid.

Netanyahu must be brought before the International Criminal Court to answer for his actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and Hamas to answer for their atrocities.

I end with the decision of Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), on 30 May to seek arrest warrants for leaders of both Israel and Hamas which was quickly followed by an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Israel must halt any military offensive in Rafah that could harm civilians.

In fact that has been completely ignored. In the meantime there is the miserable threat now of polio on top of bombs, death, horrendous injuries and starvation.

We know that all wars and occupations end at some point, but time is not on the side of the people of Gaza or the families and friends of the hostages.