Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is growing outrage across the world at the escalating death toll in Gaza. Gaza, with a population of about 1.8 million Palestinians, is essentially an open air prison. It is a community of people who are dispossessed, moved away from their homeland for decades. They have had to endure that profound injustice but, once again, they are under onslaught. Over 200 people have been killed in recent days, over 80% of whom were civilian women and children. All of us have seen the horrific images coming in every day and almost every hour. I could tell the Minister many stories but the worst has to be the entire family of the Gaza police chief, 19 people, wiped out.

This is another onslaught by the Israeli state that appears to go unchallenged. I want to know what the Minister, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and our Government have done to challenge the Israeli state on its repeated onslaught against the Palestinian people. It is deeply regrettable that rockets are being fired in the other direction but we should be sensible about that. Israel has one of the biggest armies in the world. It has a navy, an air force, nuclear weapons and missile defence systems. It is on a different scale from those in Hamas and other groups who have been launching rockets made within their own territories. This is not a real conflict. It is a genocide against a people.

What will the Minister do about this issue? Will he call in the Israeli ambassador and represent the view of the Irish people once and for all that this rogue state, which is engaged in repeated acts of terrorism, should be confronted once and for all?

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