Humza Yousaf on Israel and Palestine's right to exist

Former Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf said Palestinians' right to exist was being ignored as an SNP MP accused the UK Government of failing to "actively" save lives in Gaza. Speaking at a packed party conference fringe event in Aberdeen, Mr Yousaf questioned why he was repeatedly asked whether Israel had a right to exist, arguing that the same question was not asked about Palestinians.

The high-profile gathering, documented extensively across regional and national reporting such as The Herald and the Herts Advertiser, also featured a scathing rebuke of Westminster's foreign policy by Scottish National Party parliamentarian Lara Bird. Ms Bird, a former barrister who previously worked for the Britain Palestine Project, trained her criticism directly on Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband. Her remarks followed parliamentary announcements regarding potential sanctions against Israel.

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"I am so angry that a few weeks ago I had to sit in the House of Commons and listen to Ed Miliband stand up with all the audacity that he had and pretend that the information that he was using to make the decision to sanction Israel was brand new information."

Lara Bird, MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, via Yahoo News UK

Lancashire Telegraph coverage highlighted her warning to the Foreign Secretary that she intends to continue being angry and will use that anger when she is in Westminster representing Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and the SNP. She added that this is not a government that is actively looking to save Palestinian lives.

The personal toll of the conflict was brought into sharp relief during Mr Yousaf's address, which followed the publication of his memoir, Under Fire, accounting the trauma of the experience he shared with his wife, Ms El-Nakla, whose parents were trapped in Gaza following the outbreak of war in October 2023. He revealed to conference attendees that his wife's grandmother, Jidda Hasna, had died aged 95 after spending 77 years displaced from her family home in Julis. He said his grandmother-in-law had eventually fled Gaza for Istanbul in Turkey in 2024 and had died without being afforded the "dignity" of being buried in her homeland.

The Herald noted his description of Gaza as the cemetery beyond which international law died, and he also claimed more ammunition had fallen on Gaza than the equivalent of six atomic bombs and said the territory had more child amputees than any other region or country in the world. Yet he told the packed fringe meeting that those campaigning over Gaza could not afford to lose hope.