Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

I wish to raise the issue of the escalating violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank, how these communities face escalating violence every day and how that has intensified dramatically over the last 21 months under the cover of war but, in reality, stems from a long-standing and deliberate campaign of displacement. Just a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting two extraordinary individuals, Nassar from a village in the south Hebron hills and a courageous Israeli human rights defender from an organisation called Breaking the Silence, which is made up of former IDF soldiers who have chosen to speak out about the reality of the occupation they have participated in. I heard from them last week that the residents of a village in the southern Jordan Valley near Jericho have begun packing up their few remaining belongings and are preparing to flee after enduring years of settler harassment and military-backed violence. They were given a 48-hour ultimatum from armed settlers, and that was the final straw. This community, like so many others before it, is being erased.

This is not an isolated incident; it is part of a chilling and now familiar pattern across the West Bank, which sees the establishment of illegal settler posts - illegal under both international law and Israeli law - on or inside Palestinian villages. These are bases for terror, from where homes are burned, flocks of animals killed or stolen, food and water stores destroyed and families threatened until the only choice left is to flee. These are co-ordinated efforts to make Palestinian life in the West Bank completely unlivable. Since October 2023, at least 30 entire villages have been forcibly emptied. This is settler colonialism and it is apartheid. Last week, Nassar said today there is an attack, tomorrow there will be an attack and the day after there will be another attack; and they have grown used to this new reality. He also said the agricultural villages of area C are now breathing their last breaths. When Nassar was here, he told me about how his grandfather carried his father away from their home during the Nakba and how his father had done the same with him, and how he had no intention of leaving his home. Now, though, it looks inevitable that he and his family will be forced to flee their home in the very near future.

It is clear that without urgent international intervention this systematic dispossession will continue unabated. We need now to firmly and clearly condemn this violence, support human rights defenders from both Palestine and Israel, and call for the European Union and the wider international community to act as it relates to the West Bank. There must be consequences for those who use violence to displace civilians and there must be accountability for those who fund, protect and arm these illegal outposts. Above all, there must be solidarity with those, like Nassar and our friends in Breaking the Silence, who continue to resist injustice in the most dangerous of circumstances. I seek that we have a debate in this Chamber on this issue as it relates specifically to the West Bank.