Humza Yousaf’s wife has spoken of the “unimaginable horror” facing her family trapped in Gaza, as she said everyone in the region is “waiting to die”.
Nadia El-Nakla is desperately worried for the safety of her parents, grandmother, brother and his children, all of whom are unable to leave their home.
Her parents travelled to Gaza to visit her 93-year-old grandmother shortly before the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas, while her brother works as a doctor in A&E.
In a speech to the SNP conference in Aberdeen on Sunday, Ms El-Nakla said she was “in complete despair” about the situation, describing the conditions people are facing in Gaza as an “attack on humanity”.
“My heart feels like it’s starting to turn to stone. Gaza is being obliterated like never before. My mum has said in the past eight days there’s not been a let up for more than 10 minutes,” she said.
“Instead of sending spy planes, the UK should be sending supplies. We are not watching a natural disaster – this can be stopped. But what we are watching is an unimaginable horror – families of 20 people being wiped out just like that.
“My brother is an ER doctor and the hospital is overrun. A nurse who came from another department to the ER to help found both of his own children dead.
“Morgues are full, we are using ice cream trucks for the dead. My brother has not come home in four days as he’s not stopped working in the hospital.
“He’s starting to say he can no longer treat anyone, because there are no supplies, and that the dead are arriving in body parts. Every person in Gaza is waiting to die, every person in Gaza is being terrorised.”
In a message to world leaders, she concluded: “I ask: let us survive. Let us live in peace and I beg, and I plead: give the children of Gaza a chance of life.”
Speaking earlier, Mr Yousaf revealed how his mother-in-law said “her goodbyes” to he and his wife during a panicked phone call from Gaza in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The Scottish First Minister said Elizabeth El-Nakla had been told by a neighbour that they had been advised to evacuate due to an imminent bombing, but this turned out to be a “false alarm”.
Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Yousaf said: “Last night was a very difficult night, if I’m honest. We got a call at one in the morning from my mother in law in a panic.”
He explained that someone in the neighbourhood where they live, Deir Al-Balah outside Gaza City, had been told to evacuate their home because it was due to be hit, leaving neighbours “running to goodness and God knows where”.
“You can imagine the panic, and my mother-in-law was even saying her goodbyes, which was pretty hard to hear,” he added. Fortunately, the alert turned out to be a “false alarm”.
Mr Yousaf also made a fresh appeal to Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to urge Israel to declare a temporary ceasefire, warning that without one people would be too frightened to leave their homes.
“The UK Government is a trusted ally of Israel, they should use that trusted position to be explicit, unequivocal, and say a humanitarian corridor to allow supplies to come in and to allow people to leave, must open,” he said.
“There has to be a ceasefire because you can have an open border, but if people can’t travel there because they’re worried about being hit by a missile, a rocket, Hamas gunfire, then they’re not going to take the risk to travel – or they may and may get killed en route.
“So the UK Government have to do more.”
The First Minister also backed the creation of an emergency asylum system in the UK so Israelis and Palestinians could travel to Britain if they were displaced by the conflict.
“There are many people who are worried about their relatives – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, atheist, agnostic – whether it’s those that are captive and captured by Hamas or whether it’s those like my own family in Gaza,” he said.
“That’s why a humanitarian corridor needs to open up, that’s why there has to be a ceasefire, and we have to bring people to the UK that we’re able to.”
