Abtisam Mohamed MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement and the measures that she has announced today, but I want to come back to her strong advice to businesses that we should not conduct any economic and financial activities in illegal Israeli settlements, rather than having an outright ban. We know a ban is possible, because we did it for illegally occupied territories in Ukraine, and we know it is the right thing to do, because when it comes to trading in ivory, firearms or narcotics, we ban it outright. We know that anything less than a total ban risks the UK aiding Israel’s repeated violations of international law. Is it not time to move beyond strong guidance and advice by taking meaningful, proportionate action and having an outright ban?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lebanon: Israel Defence Forces Operations · Hansard source

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  Some 125 health workers have been killed in Lebanon in the last three months alone. Today, an Israeli strike hit an ambulance in south Lebanon, killing two paramedics, which takes the death toll to 127. The November 2024 ceasefire agreement is barely worth the paper it is written on. The Minister rightly condemns the targeting of civilians, but what about Israel’s targeting of health workers or journalists? Does the Minister realise that condemnation without action has utterly failed, and reinforces Israel’s continuing disregard for international law? Will the Minister make it clear today that sanctions must be used to hold Israel accountable?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I have constituents and family in the region who are all terrified about what may come next. The world is an infinitely more dangerous place today than it was last week. Trump and Netanyahu chose to throw away diplomacy and launch a direct attack on Iran—an attack that, as the Prime Minister has said, can never be justified under international law. Equally, Iran’s indiscriminate attacks on airports and hotels across the Gulf are flagrant violations of sovereignty and clear breaches of international law. Does the Prime Minister recognise that this attempt at regime change, like so many others before it, will only result in years of instability and conflict in the region? What assurances can he give that the UK’s involvement will remain defensive and not turn into full-scale military involvement, as we saw in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Qatar: Israeli Strike · Hansard source

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  The longer that Israel is allowed to act like a rogue state, bombing sovereign countries with impunity and expanding its war in the middle east, the weaker our words look—Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Tunisian soil and now Qatar. Why are we meeting Israel’s President Herzog today, when his own words and those of Netanyahu show a complete disregard for international humanitarian law?

• 2 Sept 2025 · Gaza: Evacuation of UK Scholarship Students · Hansard source

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  Yara is a 24-year-old student from Gaza City. Her ambition is to study international law and global justice, and earlier this year she won a scholarship at the University of Sheffield to do just that. Yara is one of more than 80 scholarship students trapped in Gaza today, displaced again and again, with all her belongings packed into a small bag and ready to move at a moment’s notice. This scholarship offers her a chance to escape Israel’s genocide, famine and bombardment, which has flattened more than 1,000 buildings in Yara’s neighbourhood in just one week. Can the Foreign Secretary guarantee that Yara and other students like her will not be left stranded and will be immediately evacuated by the Government in time for their courses to start this month?

• 2 Sept 2025 · Gaza: Evacuation of UK Scholarship Students · Hansard source

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  6. What progress his Department has made on the evacuation of UK scholarship students from Gaza.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Palestinian statehood and the additional aid announced for Gaza, as well as the recent work to evacuate students and children in need of medical treatment. However, the world’s foremost group of genocide scholars has said that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”. This is against the backdrop of Israel continuing to bombard Gaza, continuing to target and kill journalists, and continuing its policy of annexing the entire territory, with Trumpian visions of a Gaza where the self-determination of Palestinians is little more than a real estate opportunity. Does the Foreign Secretary agree with me that this monumental resolution by genocide scholars should now trigger our responsibility to act?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Sudan · Hansard source

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  Not a single person in my Sudanese diaspora community in Sheffield has not been affected by the horrific violence in Sudan, but the most harrowing part for them is not the regular communication jams blocking parent from child and brother from sister, or the multiple displacements of millions of the most vulnerable people, or indeed the famine ripping through the population; the worst part is that while this, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, is breaking every boundary we know, world powers continue to look away. The UK Government have a unique position as penholder for Sudan, and at the UN Security Council I appreciate that we called for a ceasefire through a resolution, but the resolution set no deadline for concluding the ceasefire and authorised no enforcement mission. So, Minister, what are we doing to enforce accountability for the shameful complicity of states backing the warring sides, and when will we push for an agreement to a ceasefire so the people of Sudan can be free from this horror?