AN MP has slammed Israeli soldiers for “taking selfies over the ruins” of Gaza while the UK continues arms exports to the country.
Gavin Newlands, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, condemned the UK Government for allowing the sale of weapons to Israel while Palestinians civilians are killed in their tens of thousands.
He said: “The circumstances are tragic and brutal and crystal clear to anyone willing to see them. Gaza razed to the ground, civilians actively targeted – potentially using the very equipment that the UK is exporting to Israel.
READ MORE: SNP MP clashes with BBC Scotland presenter over latest ceasefire debate
“Over 12,000 children butchered with the IDF busy taking selfies over the ruins and bodies.
“What exactly will it take for this Government to suspend arms exports to Israel?”
Foreign Office Minister Andrew Mitchell replied: “The Government takes legal advice on this matter, the arms exports committee does its work effectively and we will continue to act on the advice that we are given when we are given it.”
Newlands’s comments were later echoed by Labour MP Chi Onwurah, who urged the minister to condemn the “Israeli soldiers who film themselves posing on the bicycles of dead Gazan children or rifling through the clothes of dead Gazan women”.
Mitchell (above) refused to reference the specific point about Israeli soldiers but said the Government valued all lives lost to the conflict “equally”.
He faced a Commons grilling on Tuesday afternoon which came in place of a promised debate for the SNP on a ceasefire.
It follows a major furore last week which saw the Commons descend into chaos after the Speaker bent procedural rules to Labour’s favour on the SNP’s opposition day debate on a ceasefire in Gaza.
READ MORE: Speaker Lindsay Hoyle 'lied to MPs and the public', Stephen Flynn says
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has accused the Speaker of having lied to Parliament after reneging on his earlier promise he would use an obscure Commons procedure to allow the party another ceasefire debate.
During Mitchell’s statement, the SNP and Labour reiterated their calls for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine – which the Government argued against, claiming any cessation in hostilities at the moment would prove short-lived.
The SNP and Labour backbenchers also attempted to pile the pressure on the Government for continuing arms sales to Israel.
And the Government faced questions over its stance on Unrwa, after refusing to make public the evidence for withdrawing funding to the UN aid agency for Palestinians.
Alba MP Kenny MacAskill suggested claims Unrwa workers were involved in the Hamas attacks on Israel of October 7 were “Israeli propaganda”.
Alastair Carmichael, the LibDems MP for Orkney and Shetland, added: “Has the government of Israel yet shared with His Majesty’s Government their purported evidence of Unrwa complicity in the attacks of October 7, and if so, when did they do it?”
Mitchell replied that Urwa was under investigation by the UN and that evidence would need to be submitted to its probe into the matter.
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