The former First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf has praised himself for being the first European leader to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The SNP politician who led Scotland from March 2023 to May 2024, first called for an immediate ceasefire on October 27 – only 20 days after Hamas’s terrorist attack which killed 1,205 people and took 250 people hostage.
Mr Yousaf wrote an open letter to then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and other senior UK politicians calling for the opening of a humanitarian corridor to open.
He has now featured in an interview with the social justice focused website The New Arab to share his pride in setting an example for other leaders to follow.
His statement comes as Israel launched a strike on what it claims was a Hamas command centre in northern Gaza. The Hamas-run Health Ministry said it was a school and it had killed 22 people and wounded 30, mostly women and children.
The former First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf has praised himself for being the first European leader to call for ceasefire in Gaza
The airstrike in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza today, caused dozens of people including children dug through the rubble of the building, its ceilings caved in, walls knocked out and a mess of wires and metal rods visible
The Hamas-run Health Ministry said it was a school and the strike had killed 22 people and wounded 30, mostly women and children
When asked in the interview what his proudest moments were during his time as First Minister, Mr Yousaf replied: ‘I suppose on the international stage, giving a voice to the voiceless in Gaza for me was exceptionally important.
‘As I said there was no other European leader willing to stick their head above the parapet and call for a ceasefire, they just weren’t willing to do so.
‘I know a number of leaders who I interacted with, and I know well, told me afterwards that because I was able to do so, that they were able to come in the back of it and call for an immediate ceasefire too.
‘I was really proud of the role that I was able to play as First Minister on the global stage.’
Mr Yousaf previously hit headlines after his in-laws were stuck in Gaza when the war broke out after they had travelled there to visit family.
But in November he confirmed they were among an almost 100-strong group permitted to enter Egypt through the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza.
Meanwhile following the airstrike in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza today, dozens of people including children dug through the rubble of the building, its ceilings caved in, walls knocked out and a mess of wires and metal rods visible.
Humza Yousaf said in November his in-laws are ‘safe’ and back in Britain after they were ‘trapped’ in Gaza
Elizabeth El-Nakla and her husband Maged – the parents of Mr Yousaf’s wife Nadia – were trapped when Israel laid siege to the territory following the October 7 Hamas terror attack
Humza Yousaf embraces his wife Nadia El-Nakla after she called for a ceasefire and humanitarian on October 15
Outside, others gathered around shrouded bodies. Some covered their faces as they wept for relatives killed in the strike.
‘A missile, a missile from the plane hit us, and another missile,’ said Ferial Deloul.
‘We saw the whole world covered with smoke and stones and we saw people and children cut up. What should we do? What is our fault for this to happen to us?’
The Israeli army said earlier that it struck a Hamas ‘command and control centre, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served’ as a school.
‘The Hamas terrorist organisation systematically violates international law by operating from inside civilian infrastructure,’ the army said.
The Israeli army has continually accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools and United Nations facilities.
According to witnesses, a group of orphans had earlier gathered at the building to receive sponsorship from a local aid group.
‘Civil defence crews recovered (the bodies of) 21 people, including 13 children and six women’, one of whom was pregnant, said Bassal.
Internally displaced Palestinians search through the rubble in the Al-Zeitoun school
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced that the strike it conducted was targeting a Hamas control and command center, which was ’embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Al Falah School’
More than 41,300 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), since Hamas militants launched an attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip gave the same death toll for what the Israeli military said was ‘a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control centre… embedded inside’ an adjacent school.
AFPTV footage showed the ground floor of the school-turned-shelter covered with concrete rubble and mangled chairs and tables, and a gaping hole in the ceiling of what appeared to be a classroom.
Thousands of Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war had sought shelter there, Bassal said.
There were ‘around 30 injured, including nine children (needing) limb amputations, as a result of an Israeli bombing on Al-Zeitun School C’ in Gaza City, he said.
Israel’s military said its target was in Al-Falah School, adjacent to the Al-Zeitun School buildings.
Displaced Gazan Randa al-Nadim told AFP she saw a pregnant woman killed in the strike.
‘Here a woman was martyred, and this is her blood on the stairs… we found her belly open and the fetus on the stairs,’ she said.
‘Did the fetus fight Israel?’
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 22 people were killed and dozens injured in the latest strike
The school was being used as a shelter by internally displaced Palestinians
It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged on for nearly a year since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an October 7 attack on southern Israel.
They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians.
Also on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry said five of its workers were killed and five others injured by Israeli fire that struck the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah area.
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