A group of 13 MPs has been named and shamed in the House of Lords after parroting the discredited claim that 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of dying within 48 hours.
The widely shared statement, originally made by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, sparked a wave of outrage and was cited multiple times in Parliament. Fletcher had claimed: “There are 14,000 babies who will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.”
However, it later emerged that the figure referred not to an imminent mass death, but to infants at risk of severe malnutrition over the course of an entire year.
Despite this, the dramatic and misleading claim made its way into Tuesday’s heated Commons debate, and was repeated by a slew of MPs across party lines.
In a blistering intervention in the House of Lords, Lord Polak – a Conservative peer and honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel – publicly named the 13 parliamentarians who repeated the claim without verifying its accuracy.
The MPs are: Joe Powell (Labour, Kensington and Bayswater), Adnan Hussain (Independent, Blackburn), Debbie Abrahams (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth), Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion Preseli), Olivia Blake (Labour, Sheffield Hallam), Tahir Ali (Labour, Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley), Vikki Slade (Lib Dem, Mid Dorset and North Poole), Danny Chambers (Lib Dem, Winchester), Imran Hussain (Labour, Bradford East), Monica Harding (Lib Dem, Esher and Walton), Carla Denyer (Green, Bristol Central), Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden), and Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour, Calder Valley).
Polak said: “Words have consequences. Yaron and Sarah, two young representatives of the State of Israel, were murdered in cold blood in DC; two beautiful souls gunned down as a direct result of toxic anti-Semitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world.”
He added: “I register an interest as a Jew, a proud Jew. Let their souls be for a blessing.” We are concerned about the situation in Gaza, which I remind the House, was caused by Hamas.”
Despite the controversy, none of the MPs named have retracted their statements or issued an apology.
The row comes just days after the brutal killing of Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who were shot dead during an attack at a Washington D.C. event hosted by the American Jewish Committee.
