Scotland's leader Humza Yousaf said on Monday that his wife's parents were "trapped" in Gaza, leaving him worried if they will survive an attack by Israel
The parents of Yousaf’s wife were in Gaza visiting family when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel over the weekend.
"As many will know, my wife is Palestinian, her mum and dad, my in-laws, who live in Dundee, live in Scotland, they’ve been in Gaza and are currently trapped in Gaza, I'm afraid," Yousaf told journalists in Scotland, according to The Herald.
Israel has been conducting air strikes on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, killing hundreds of people in retaliation for one of the bloodiest attacks in its history when the Hamas movement killed 700 Israelis and abducted dozens more.
The Israeli military said it had called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists and was imposing a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, signs it could be planning a ground assault there to defeat Hamas.
Yousaf said his wife's parents have been told by Israeli authorities to leave because "Gaza will effectively be obliterated".
"Despite the best efforts of the British Foreign Office, nobody, nobody can guarantee them safe passage anywhere," he said.
"I'm in a situation where, frankly, night by night, day by day, we don’t know whether or not my mother-in-law and father-in-law, who have nothing to do, as most Gazans don’t, with Hamas or with any terror attack, whether they will make it through the night or not."
Yousaf, a 38-year-old practicing Muslim, won a contest to lead the governing Scottish National Party earlier this year, making him the first Muslim to lead a country in Western Europe in recent history.
