Rishi Sunak Calls Hamas Attacks a ‘Pogrom’ and Says Palestinians are ‘Human Shields’

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to students at a Jewish secondary school in north London on Oct. 16, 2023. PA

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has told the House of Commons the attack on Jewish people by Hamas terrorists last week was a “pogrom” and has said Palestinian civilians in Gaza were being used as “human shields.”

The prime minister told MPs: “The attacks in Israel last weekend shocked the world. Over 1,400 people murdered, one by one. Over 3,500 wounded, almost 200 taken hostage. The elderly, men, women, children, babes in Arms, murdered, mutilated, burned alive. We should call it by its name. It was a pogrom.”

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, in Gaza City are bracing themselves for a ground offensive that Israel is expected to launch in the wake of the attacks by Hamas, which left 1,400 people dead.

Mr. Sunak said Hamas was a “vicious enemy” which was using civilians as “human shields” and deliberately embedded itself in residential areas.

The prime minister confirmed at least six British nationals had died in the Hamas attacks and ten were missing, with some of those presumed dead.

Israel said on Monday it believed Hamas terrorists had abducted 199 people—a higher figure than originally estimated—and hidden them in the Gaza Strip to use as bargaining chips.

Mr. Sunak urged Hamas to free all those who had been taken hostage.

Around 2,700 people have been killed in Gaza by air strikes launched as part of Operation Swords of Iron, the term given by the Israel Defense Forces for their military retaliation.

Hamas Putting Palestinian People ‘in Harm’s Way’

Mr. Sunak said: “We must support the Palestinian people because they are victims of Hamas too like. We believe that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations to live with equal measures of security, freedom, justice, opportunity and dignity. Hamas simply does not stand for the future that the Palestinians want. And they seek to put the Palestinian people in harm’s way.”

The Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, echoed the tone of Mr. Sunak on the crisis.

He told Parliament: “Last Saturday, Israel was the victim of terrorism on an unimaginable scale. The senseless murder of men, women, children, even babies. The horrors of hostage-taking, music festivals turned to killing fields, innocent Jews slaughtered within their own kibbutzes and attacked with no cause, other than bloodshed.”

Sir Keir said Israel had the right to “bring her people home” and to defend herself.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to destroy Hamas once and for all, but thousands of people marched in London and other cities over the weekend in support of the Palestinians.

Many of the marchers called on Britain and the West to exert influence on Israel to prevent huge collateral damage and civilian deaths in Gaza.

Posters of missing people—including a nine-month-old baby—after apparently being abducted by Hamas terrorists from Israel are taped to a map near St. Paul's Cathedral in central London on Oct. 13, 2023. Chris Summers/The Epoch Times

The U.N. and several charities have expressed concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, which has been starved of food, water and electricity by an Israeli blockade.

Egypt is also coming under intense pressure to open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

On Thursday, Mr. Sunak spoke to Mr. Netanyahu, and he has urged Israel to do all it can to protect Palestinian civilians, while supporting Israel’s right to hit back after the atrocities committed by Hamas, which apparently included beheading babies.

The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said on Sunday it, “is in Israel’s interest to avoid civilian casualties and Palestinian casualties because Hamas clearly wants to turn this into a wider Arab-Israeli war, or indeed a war between the Muslim world and the wider world.”

On Monday morning, Mr. Sunak visited a Jewish secondary school in north London and reiterated his support for the Jewish community, which has seen a big upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents.

Asked about two women who were pictured at a demonstration over the weekend wearing stickers showing Hamas paragliders, he said he hoped they were apprehended and prosecuted.

Hamas Supporters Should Face ‘Full Force of the law’

Mr. Sunak: “Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation. It’s very clear under the law, the support and glorification of Hamas is illegal and those offences are punishable with up to almost 14 years in jail ... there’s no place in our society for that type of hatred and division, and it will be met with the full force of the law where it happens.”

So far, most Labour MPs have backed Mr. Starmer’s stance on Israel, but over the weekend Jessie Hoskin, a councillor in Gloucestershire, quit Labour in protest at a radio interview he did in which he backed Israel’s right to deprive Gazans of water and electricity.

Ms. Hoskin, writing on Facebook, said, “Two million Palestinians in Gaza, who had nothing to do with Hamas’ actions, should not be punished collectively for it.”

King Abdullah II of Jordan, who is trying to prevent Israel from invading Gaza, met Mr. Sunak in Downing Street on Sunday evening.

Despite a fundamental disagreement with his guest on Israel’s actions in Gaza, Downing Street issued a statement in which they said, “The prime minister thanked King Abdullah for Jordan’s support for British nationals wishing to leave the occupied Palestinian territories [in the West Bank], and the leaders agreed to remain in close contact in the coming days and weeks.”

On Monday night, pro-Israel demonstrators are expected to gather outside the BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place to protest at the broadcaster’s refusal to describe Hamas as “terrorists.”

PA Media contributed to this report.