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by Staff Reporter
22 September 2025
Zubir Ahmed: ‘I feel relatively powerless’ over Gaza

Zubir Ahmed became a junior health minister in this month's reshuffle | Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Zubir Ahmed: ‘I feel relatively powerless’ over Gaza

Labour MP and health minister Zubir Ahmed has described feeling “relatively powerless” in the face of Israel’s aggression towards Palestine.

In an exclusive interview with Holyrood, the Glasgow South West MP said it was “painful” not to be able to do more to end the suffering in Gaza.

He described the escalation in recent months as “unconscionable” and “things I thought I would never see in a so-called western democracy”.

And he went on to say that some members of the Israeli government have “genocidal intent”.

The UK Government is moving to officially recognise the state of Palestine imminently.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that decision over the summer, saying it was the result of an “increasingly intolerable” situation in Gaza. He urged Israel at the time to take “substantive steps” to reach a ceasefire.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has previously said he believes what is taking place in Gaza is a “genocide”. London mayor Sadiq Khan last week also described it as such.

But UK government ministers have stopped short of labelling what is happening a genocide.

Ahmed, who was speaking to Holyrood at the start of September, days before he was promoted to junior health minister in the reshuffle, said the UK and other countries should put a “recurring kind of pressure on the Israeli government” to end the conflict.

But he expressed “frustration” that the UK could not do more. He said: “There’s not a singular military solution that the British government can enact to stop this, and that is a really, really painful thing to say, to be in the place of power like we are right now and to tell you that I am relatively powerless in this conflict.

“That does not mean I’m not responsible. It doesn’t mean I don’t have any agency and I don’t need to strive to make a difference, but to tell you that I feel relatively powerless in the place of power in the UK is painful.”

He added: “The arc of this, even in the last couple of months, has gone into places that are unconscionable, horrendous, and really are, you know, things I thought I would never see in a so-called western democracy.

“We have members of that government [Israel] who certainly have genocidal intent – members of that government indicted by the International Criminal Court. It’s an unprecedented diplomatic position to be in.”

Ahmed, who worked as a surgeon before being elected to Westminster last year, also revealed that he would have been in Gaza with Medical Aid for Palestine the day the general election was called, had the Rafah Crossing not been closed two weeks earlier.

He feels that his role now as an MP was to work with others to prevent the suffering in the region.

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