LAST week I went to a conference in Cairo to pledge a further £20 million to assist Gaza.

This is in addition to the £17 million aid we announced during the fighting in July, which is on top of our long-term commitment to the Palestinians – running at £349 million from 2011-15 (of which £40 million per year goes into Gaza).

I said to the nations represented in Cairo that Gaza had already been in a desperate state, even before the destruction restarted in July, and that there will be no enthusiasm for reconstruction while the prospect remains of it all being blown to smithereens once again. There will have to be significant advance in a peace process before donors will have the confidence to fund reconstruction.

At the same time, we cannot just leave the people in despair. So, the priority for UK's extra £20 million is to create temporary jobs clearing the rubble; to enable enterprises to make repairs and get back into business and to provide funds for reconstructive surgery for the injured. I hope all those constituents who emailed me in July and August demanding that the Government do more to condemn Israel’s bombardment, will appreciate that we have done rather more, by putting our money where our mouth is.

After Cairo I went on to see Gaza for myself. It was a sobering experience. I spoke with relief workers – 11 of whose colleagues paid with their lives, people who had lost their homes, businessmen and political commentators. One of the most depressing aspects of the destruction was what appeared to have been the wholesale targeting of business premises, with industrial estates and factories completely laid to waste.

I then went on to Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank to have discussions with the Palestinian Authority. I had separate meetings with the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, both of whom I found to be impressive figures, pragmatists with a wealth of experience.

Unfortunately, the Palestinians have not always been so well-led. The peace process is constrained by the reality that the available land for a Palestinian state is less than was on offer in 1948, when they chose war instead. Even now, the request is that former Israeli proposals be placed back on the negotiating table, notwithstanding having been previously rejected.

In Jerusalem I had the rare advantage of an early morning tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre before the tourists were up and about. We couldn’t proceed to the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock because, early though it still was, rioting had already started. The simmering tensions within the city, exacerbated by Jewish settlement expansion and disputes over access to the Holy sites, are like a powder keg that could blow at any moment, or, as one frustrated Israeli would-be peacemaker described it to me, “a biblical theme park on the edge of Armageddon”.

Finally, in Tel Aviv, it fell to me to deliver a blunt message. As an instinctive supporter of Israel I did not find it easy. No democracy could tolerate the indiscriminate rocket fire that Israel has had to endure, nor could they have continued to put up with the devastating suicide bombings to which they were subjected, without having taken many of the measures that they have done.

Nevertheless I told my audience that their supporters had watched in dismay as Israel morphed from David into Goliath.

I drew particular attention to two problems. Firstly, there is almost no interface between ordinary Palestinians and Israelis except through the operation of the “pass laws”. For example, my department’s staff in Jerusalem, who travel in from the West Bank daily (a journey which should take 20 minutes but which is made to take up to a couple of hours) only speak to an Israeli when – as they perceive it – they are interrogated, harassed and humiliated, before being allowed to proceed about their legitimate business in their own land.

Secondly, a prosperous Israel is cheek-by-jowl with much poorer Palestinian territories, but the keys to Palestinian development and prosperity are all in the hands of Israel. In our efforts to assist with economic development we find the progress is glacial in the face of pettifogging Israeli bureaucratic obstruction, prompted by what appears to be combination of sheer bloody-mindedness, protectionism, and politics.

Of course, Israel has legitimate security concerns but, in the absence of progress in peace talks, Palestinian economic development is in the best interests of Israel’s security: people who have something to lose are less inclined to turn to violence. I was heard in silence, but a number of those present did approach me afterwards to say how important my message was.

I left with the impression that Tel Aviv – a fantastic and prosperous modern city on the beach front – is somewhat out of touch with the reality of the West Bank, or, as my Israeli friend put it, “they are sipping cappuccino on the edge of a volcano”.