“More bitterness. More hatred. More problems come down the road.”

In July 2023, I spoke in Parliament after the Israeli Defense Force conducted their largest military operation on the West Bank since 2002. Their target was Jenin refugee camp, home to more than fourteen thousand people, living in less than half a square kilometer. In a space this densely populated, there is no such thing as targeted strikes. Twelve Palestinians were killed, including five children, and more than one hundred were injured. I pleaded with MPs on both sides of the House of Commons to consider not just the immediate human cost of this attack, but the chain reaction of misery and terror that it would unleash.

On Saturday, hundreds of innocent people in southern Israel were brutally murdered in a horrifying attack by Hamas. Dozens were taken hostage. Today, and for the rest of their lives, families across Israel will be mourning their loved ones, who were gunned down in a heinous massacre. The fear they must have felt is unthinkable. So too is the pain and trauma that has been left behind.