A Bolton MP has spoken out against a “horrific” Israeli attack on Palestinian refugees that killed 35 people.
Israeli air strikes hit Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday, killing 35 people and hitting tents that Palestinian medics say had been sit up for refugees who had fled there.
Now Bolton South East MP Yasmin Qureshi says that the British government must do more to hold Israel accountable.
Ms Qureshi said: “Absolutely horrific scenes coming out of Rafah last night.
“Bombing a refugee camp, burning civilians and children alive and this too a day after the ICJ ordered Israel to stop this offensive.
“Our Government had claimed they were against it so now we must see accountability.”
The air strikes came just two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah.
More than half of Gaza’s population had sought shelter in the beleaguered city before Israel’s incursion earlier this month.
This follows on from months of devastating conflict that has seen more than 35,000 and 1,400 Israeli’s killed since last October.
The war has reverberated across the streets of the UK since then and Bolton has been one of many towns and cities to host regular pro-Palestinian rallies.
In November last year Ms Qureshi resigned from Labour’s front bench after the party’s MPs were ordered to abstain on an SNP motion calling for a ceasefire.
Ms Qureshi said at the time that she felt she had no choice but to defy her party leadership and resign from the front bench in order to vote in favour of the ceasefire motion.
After the local elections in May, Bolton Labour leader Cllr Nick Peel admitted that his party had suffered a “backlash” as a “direct result of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine.”
In February this year Bolton North East Conservative MP also broke with his party’s leadership saying that he believed Israel had “gone too far.”
Mr Logan said he could “no longer in good conscience” continue supporting his leadership’s line on Gaza.
In the wake of the attack on Rafah, Labour leader Keir Starmer has now said he would call on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop.”
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He said: “Those scenes, those reports, are horrifying and what makes it worse was this was a safe zone with women and children and families that have already fled a number of times.
“It’s horrifying to see that. I’ve been saying for some time the Rafah offensive should not take place.”
He added: “I was shocked by what I saw overnight, I think any human being would be shocked by what they saw. It’s got to stop.”
The Israeli military claims it hit a Hamas installation, killing two senior militants and was investigating reports that civilians were harmed.
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