Readers' Letters: Israel’s bombing of Gaza is indefensible

While in no way condoning the deplorable actions of Hamas on 7 October, I must take issue with the article by Euan McColm (5 November). Israel’s “right to defend itself” has resulted in the deaths of many thousands of innocent Palestinians, including an attack on a UN shelter.

People search buildings destroyed in Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip (Picture: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Does Palestine not also have the right to exist, as Mr McColm insists Israel does? Instead, after the Second World War, Palestinians were thrown out of their homes and re-settled in Gaza and the West Bank. Even these enclaves have been steadily eroded over 75 years of brutal oppression, with the UN acknowledging the illegality of some of the Israeli settlements, but the whole world has stood by and done nothing about it. No wonder an organisation like Hamas has arisen. I think we all know by now that the people of Gaza were living in a ghetto.

Of course, he couldn’t resist a dig at Jeremy Corbyn, “the crank who once referred to members of Hamas as friends”. Mr. Corbyn has explained this in an interview in which he said he spoke at a meeting in parliament and “welcomed our friends from Hezbollah to have a discussion and a debate, and I said I wanted Hamas to be part of that debate”. Perhaps if we talked to each other instead of shooting we might get closer to peace.

Israel’s present policy of bombing the hell out of Gaza in the hope of killing members of Hamas will result in the total destruction of buildings and infrastructure, and the wiping-out of the population. I call that genocide.

Anne Simms

Falkirk

Too predictable

Humza Yousaf has been accused of misleading parliament – opposition parties question his claim to have first been asked to provide WhatsApp messages to the UK Covid inquiry in September when it appears evident the request was first made in November 2022. But what will be done? Perhaps we'll have another Holyrood committee inquiry in which, following a precedent set by his predecessor, Yousaf will likely respond: “I honestly can't remember”, or “My recollections aren't clear”. And the majority SNP committee will reach its entirely impartial, pathetically inevitable conclusion.

Martin Redfern

Melrose, Roxburghshire

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