Meeting of the Parliament 03 September 2025
The Scottish Government has, since the start of the conflict, repeatedly called for a ceasefire and for the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. We have also condemned unreservedly Hamas’s brutality in October 2023, including the murder of the Scottish Jew Bernard Cowan, and have called for hostages to be released. Hamas must have no future in Gaza. We have called on the United Kingdom to end arms sales to Israel and to ensure that there is accountability for those who are responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The First Minister has made it clear that the Scottish Government shares the concern of other Governments and international leaders that genocide appears to be unfolding in Gaza. We recognise the gravity of such a conclusion. Genocide is the gravest of international crimes, and Governments must act when they believe that it is happening.
As the First Minister set out, the ministerial code requires the Scottish Government to follow international law and to meet international treaty obligations. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the Labour amendment explicitly and specifically recognises the importance of international law to the question whether support for arms companies can continue. It is right to do so and, as the First Minister also set out, it is in taking account of international law and the ministerial code that we have paused new support.
It is, of course, ultimately for international courts to decide whether genocide has occurred, but Governments cannot wait until it is too late; history has taught us that harsh lesson. The last genocide in Europe took place in Srebrenica in 1995. However, it took until 2007, 12 years later, for the International Court of Justice to recognise that situation as genocide. History will judge all decision makers on what we have done to react to the facts that we can all see. Doing nothing, prevaricating or seeking to avoid difficult decisions is not an option.
In January 2024, the International Court of Justice found a prima facie case that the Israeli Government was committing genocide, and it issued provisional measures. In May 2024, following the Israel Defense Forces’ assault on Rafah, the court issued additional orders, to halt military operations that might inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions that could bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.
The alarm has been raised. Evidence is on television daily. More than 63,000 people, most of whom were women and children, have died. Famine has been declared, while thousands of truckloads of aid are blocked and desperate Palestinians risk death in trying to access the meagre supplies that are being distributed under gunfire by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. United Nations leaders have expressed fears of a genocide.