Israel’s attacks on Gaza are “unjustifiable” and “intolerable”, Wes Streeting has said, as the health secretary expressed discomfort at images of bombs shattering the region that has been under threat by the Israelis “for many years”.
Streeting said he found Israel’s decision to break the Gaza ceasefire “soul-destroying”, and insisted the attacks do not “serve in Israel’s self-interest and cannot be justified as self-defence”, adding: “It has got to stop.”
On Monday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 65 people in Gaza, including women, children and two journalists, nearly a week after it broke its ceasefire deal with Hamas.
The scale of attacks prompted the UN to announce it will “reduce its footprint” in Gaza, after an attack at one of its compounds saw one of their staff killed and five others injured.
Streeting insisted Labour had used “every diplomatic lever available” to them since they have been in power to try to bring an end to the “bloody war”, but as a UK cabinet minister he still feels “powerless”.
Speaking at a Guardian Live event, he said: “I find it soul-destroying seeing the breakdown of the ceasefire and the impact we are seeing on innocent human lives … I was looking back at some photos just this morning of a place called Susya in the West Bank, which has been under threat of demolition by the Israelis for many years and now is on the frontline of settler violence.
“This is completely unjustifiable. It is completely intolerable. It doesn’t serve in Israel’s self interest. It cannot be justified as self-defence, and it has got to stop.”
He added: “It’s very frustrating, let me tell you, being a member of the cabinet the United Kingdom and still feeling powerless in the face of this appalling conflict which does nothing for Israelis or Palestinians.”
The health secretary’s remarks came in a wide-ranging interview during which he reflected on the flurry of angry emails and messages he received for saying there was an “overdiagnosis” of mental illness.
While he said he understood why people emailed him with a strength of feeling, he stopped short of apologising, but acknowledged: “We’ve got to handle this in a sensitive way, and I reflect on your feedback … to handle this in a sensitive way”.
Three NHS patients who were angry at his comments on young people with mental illness interrupted Streeting as he spoke at the start of the event. They shouted “your cuts will kill” and held a banner which read: “Disability cuts will kill”, as they criticised his support for the planned cuts to personal independence payments to disabled people.
Reflecting on the government’s unpopular decision to cut disability benefits and foreign aid, Streeting urged Labour’s critical friends to “cut us some slack”.
“The government’s been in for five minutes,” he said. “I know it’s hard and some choices we’ve made are unpopular but look at the scale of the challenge.”
Defending the growing use of the private sector to tackle NHS waiting lists, Streeting added it is not just the “pragmatic thing to do” but the “principled thing to do” if there is spare capacity in the private sector for the NHS to use, so people can be seen faster.
