Labour ceasefire vote live: Starmer hit by mass frontbench resignations over Gaza motion

Gaza will be turned into a graveyard if there is not an immediate ceasefire, the SNP has said.

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “In 2010, the then prime minister and now Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that people in Gaza are living under constant attacks and pressure in an open air prison, does the current Prime Minister not agree that if there is not an immediate ceasefire then all of us in this chamber will be watching on as that open air prison is turned into a graveyard?”

He added: “How much worse does it need to get, 4,609 children are already dead in Gaza, babies in the neo-natal intensive care unit are dying because they don’t have access to oxygen.”

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths on Wednesday implored Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel.

“Kerem Shalom, please Israel, give us that for our crossing point,” Griffiths told reporters in Geneva.

Griffiths said that the Kerem Shalom crossing was used to carry more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before this conflict.

The aid currently going into Gaza comes from the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border.

A series of resignation would be the largest challenge to Sir Keir’s authority since the early days of his leadership of the party.

Last month four shadow ministers were said to be on resignation watch over Sir Keir’s refusal to back a ceasefire.

The Labour leader was forced to hold a crunch meeting with a group of Muslim Labour MPs to address anger over his handling of the crisis – including comments in which he appeared to back the cutting of power and water to Gaza.

One frontbencher Imran Hussain, the MP for Bradford East, did resign saying he was quitting his role as a shadow minister to be able to “strongly advocate” for a ceasefire.

The decision not to back a ceasefire also prompted the exodus of a series of councillors from the party.

Labour MPs will be under a three-line whip to back the party’s amendment to the King’s Speech calling for longer humanitarian pauses in Gaza.

They will also be under a three-line whip to abstain on the SNP’s amendment calling for a ceasefire, meaning frontbenchers will almost certainly be sacked if they rebel and support it.

A Labour spokesman said: “This is a whipped vote and every MP knows what the consequence of that means.”

The spokesman acknowledged that shadow ministers had been given some freedom to speak in favour of a ceasefire, but said a Commons vote was a different matter.

“There is an understanding that there is a difference when it comes to the space that we have allowed, given that we fully understand that this is a very challenging subject … in the debate that there has been up to this point, but at the point at which there is a vote in Parliament that clearly is something that has a significance to it that everybody understands,” the spokesman said.

Israel’s incursion into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza has been criticised as “totally unacceptable” by the World Health Organisation’s chief.

Israeli troops entered Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, on Wednesday as part of their assault on the Palestinian territory.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva that patients and staff must be protected even if hospitals were used for military purposes.

“Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” he said.

He said that the WHO had lost touch with medical personnel and the organisation had no reports on the number of deaths in Gaza over the last three days, making it difficult to assess the state of their current healthcare system.

He said one WHO staff member had described it as: “No water, no electricity, only bombing, bombing, bombing.”

Israel forces have raided Gaza’s largest hospital, with doctors saying inside al-Shifa saying it is a “gamble to move between the buildings” as gunfire continues.

Witnesses say the troops have been searching wards of questioning people inside, having surrounded the complex where more than 2,000 patients, staff and people sheltering have been trapped without electricity and supplies.

Israel’s military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that troops were carrying out “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in Shifa Hospital” which the military claim sits atop a command centre and a network of militant tunnels. It is an accusation Hamas denies.

Read the full report from international correspondent Bel Trew below

Pennsylvania mother Noha Abuolba and her two teenage daughters were travelling south on a bus through Gaza on their way to the border.

As the family made their way along the coastal road, what they believe to be an Israeli airstrike hit their vehicle, followed by gunfire. Multiple people died around them. Eighteen-year-old Saja Abuolba suffered shrapnel wounds in her shoulder and back. Her sister, 17-year-old Farah, lost two fingers on her left hand.

Read the full story from Richard Hall here

A group of Extinction Rebellion protesters has been removed from the House of Commons public gallery after holding up “ceasefire now” signs.

The group’s action came during the King’s Speech debate as shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper spoke about the Israel-Hamas conflict and Labour’s amendment.

Extinction Rebellion said its activists had staged the protest in the House of Commons in order to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

XR spokesperson Rosie Merrifield said: “Parliament must today demand that the Government calls for an immediate ceasefire and commits to back an internationally arbitrated resolution which ensures the absolute protection of human rights for all, and lasting safety and peace for the Palestinian and Israeli people.”

Sir Keir Starmer is battling to avoid a damaging split in Labour as rebel MPs appear set to defy him to back calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The SNP has tabled an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for a ceasefire which could be selected for a vote by Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle.

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has said Parliament must “show moral leadership” and vote in favour of backing an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Labour MPs have been ordered to abstain on the SNP move and have instead been told to back Sir Keir’s position calling for longer “humanitarian pauses” rather than a ceasefire.

Labour frontbenchers who rebel to back a rival amendment would normally face the sack for breaking the party whip.

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said that there are at least 300 patients and staff inside the Al-Shifa hospital, which is currently “at the mercy of gunfire, shelling and fire from drones”.

Deputy medical co-ordinator Natalie Thurtle said that her team had only managed to establish brief communication with staff inside the hospital and said that another 100 members and families were in the surrounding vicinity.

She told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One programme: “We’ve been trying to evacuate them for three days”, she said, but the action had been hindered due to “sustained” fighting around the hospital.

“It’s very perilous and there is no opportunity for people to leave Shifa at the moment.”