Humza Yousaf says he is 'powerless' to help family trapped in Gaza

In an emotional interview with Sky News, the First Minister told of his anger as he said Foreign Secretary James Cleverly failed to respond to requests for information on Scots – including his own family – who are trapped in Gaza.

Cleverly is said to have failed to respond to a letter from Yousaf about his wife’s mother Elizabeth El-Nakla and her husband Maged.

The couple are in Gaza after travelling there before war broke out to visit their Palestinian relatives.

V powerful moment as a tired and emotional @HumzaYousaf sheds a tear explaining how his 4 year old daughter asks about speaking to her granny who is trapped in Gaza. @SkyNews pic.twitter.com/VbWWK23XDA

— Connor Gillies (@ConnorGillies) October 13, 2023

And he said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has still not spoken with him since news of their plight was revealed last week.

He said Cleverly should have “picked up the phone” to give assurances the Foreign Office was working to get his relatives out of the war-torn region.

READ MORE: Humza Yousaf says 'no justification' for Israel's evacuation demand

Yousaf said: “I am disappointed I have to say that James Cleverly himself hasn’t been in touch because we have told them there are two UK citizens – and he was in Israel, he was not necessarily far away from Gaza – not suggesting he should have gone but he could have clearly picked up the phone to give me an assurance that they are working day and night to get those two UK citizens out of Gaza.”

Asked how he felt about the lack of communication from the top of the UK Government, Yousaf said: “Well, pretty angry that the Foreign Secretary… I am not necessarily expecting the Prime Minister to pick up the phone.

This is Elizabeth El-Nakla. She is my mother-in-law. A retired nurse from Dundee, Scotland. She, like the vast majority of people in Gaza, has nothing to do with Hamas. She has been told to leave Gaza but, like the rest of the population, is trapped with nowhere to go. pic.twitter.com/D3ZUtnEmyO

— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 13, 2023

“But I would expect the Foreign Secretary… not just for me, I have also asked for other details around other Scots that might be trapped in Gaza, other Scots in Israel that might be looking to get out.

“But the fact that the Foreign Secretary has so far ignored my letter but also not been in touch makes me angry.

“I’d be more interested in getting the Foreign Secretary to speak up about a humanitarian corridor to allow food supplies to come in and to allow the people of Gaza to leave."

Yousaf said his wife Nadia El-Nakla “will see her mum and dad again”.

He added: “We look at our phones every night. My wife will look at her phone every hour, because at night is when we are most distressed, as you can imagine.

"And I do not know, I genuinely do not know if I will see my mother-in-law and father-in-law again.

“Nadia doesn't know if she will see her mum and dad again. All we can do is watch the news, look at the rolling coverage, wait for messages and then go hours without seeing messages and hope and pray.”

READ MORE: 'Where's humanity?': Humza Yousaf's mother-in-law shares 'last video' from Gaza

Asked about a video shared by his mother-in-law, an emotional Yousaf replied: “It was a really hard video to watch, for both my wife and I, but all we can do in our situation is try to tell people’s story. I cannot tell you Beth, how powerless and helpless I feel.

“Not just for my own mother-in-law and father in-law. But what's your instinct as a family member? To protect your family. It doesn't matter who you are.

“Whether you are First Minister, you're a journalist, whoever you are, your first instinct is to protect your family as best as you can. And I am completely powerless. The only thing I can do is share their story.”

His tearful admission came as 1.1 million residents were told to evacuate for what is expected to be an imminent ground invasion from Israel to the region’s north.

They have been told to flee to southern Gaza, which has even worse infrastructure than the area the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) plan to attack and fears have been raised the evacuation will be a catastrophe.

The United Nations has warned that relocation on such a scale is “impossible” and would have devastating consequences for those in the Palestinian enclave.

Among the dead since the killing began last weekend are 1300 Israelis and 1500 Palestinians.

Yousaf has also previously called on the Foreign Secretary to call on Israel to avoid the “collective punishment” of Palestinians for Hamas’s attacks and said the country must operate within international law.