Humza Yousaf has spoken to his in-laws who are trapped in Gaza after raising fears that they may be dead after all communications were knocked out.
Scotland’s first minister and his wife, Nadia El-Nakla, lost contact with her parents on Friday after the Israeli’s stepped up their onslaught on Hamas.
On Sunday, Yousaf wrote on Twitter/X that he has now heard from El-Nakla’s parents, Elizabeth and Maged. He said they are alive but he fears for their safety as they have run out of drinking water.
“We heard from my in-laws in Gaza this morning, they are alive, thank God,” he wrote.“However, they have run out of clean drinking water.”
El-Nakla’s parents travelled to Gaza from Scotland before the conflict to visit family.
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Today Yousaf reiterated his call for a ceasefire and for the implementation of the UN resolution that has called for a sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.
“The UN resolution must be implemented. We need the violence to stop, and for significant amounts of aid to get through without delay,” he wrote.
The first minister has previously written to all political leaders in the UK, urging them to back a ceasefire in Gaza.
In a letter understood to have been sent on Thursday evening, he said Israel has a right to defend itself following the Hamas attacks on October 7, but he added action must be taken now to stop the “staggering humanitarian disaster” unfolding in Gaza before it becomes “cataclysmic”.
El-Nakla’s parents, who live in Dundee, travelled to Gaza earlier this month to visit their son and four grandchildren and Maged’s 92-year-old mother, who is ill.
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The couple have been unable to find a safe passage out since the first Hamas attack took place on the border with Israel.
El-Nakla recently told the BBC her parents “continually tell me they feel like they’re going to die”.
Her mother is a retired nurse and her father used to run a small business. On Saturday Yousaf said they were “terrified” and had resorted to huddling in one room of a family home that used to house ten people but is now sheltering 100.
Yousaf told Sky News that “men, women and children are paying the price for a crime they did not commit” and added that his mother-in-law felt “abandoned” by the UK govenment.
He also criticised the UK government’s abstention from a UN vote calling for an effective ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and added: “The UK abstaining was a complete abdication of their moral responsibililty. The response has been shameful.”
