Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I join others in this House in extending my deepest sympathies to the family of Kim Damti who was brutally killed in a savage attack by Hamas. Kim was just 22, and like so many people her age loved attending music festivals with her friends. She was doing that last weekend when Hamas opened fire. More than 260 young people were massacred at that site. Elsewhere in southern Israel, more than 1,200 people have been confirmed dead. Thousands more have been injured.

The terror and devastation experienced by those caught up in the attack is unimaginable. So, too, is the terror experienced by Palestinian mothers cradling their children, desperate to shield them from the bombs dropping indiscriminately over their heads. It is impossible to imagine the devastation experienced by those in Gaza who as we speak are pulling the bodies of loved ones from the rubble that was formerly their home, school or hospital. More than 1,300 people, including more than 320 children, have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks. I can understand and empathise with the rage, grief and fear of the Israeli people. It has triggered generational trauma that is raw and real. Sadly, there has been little acknowledgment on the world stage of the generational trauma of the Palestinian people, a people who have been driven from their land, corralled and confined into open-air prisons and forced to exist under an apartheid regime that has inflicted injustice after injustice on the people of Palestine; a regime that has continuously massacred civilians. This has been the lived reality of the Palestinian people for decades and we cannot become desensitized to that horror.

The indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas fighters must be condemned unequivocally. There can be no justification for the deliberate targeting of civilians. The decision by the Israeli Government to blockade the supply of food, water and energy from Gaza is unprecedented and horrifying. Later today, it is expected that the fuel operating the generators in Gaza's hospitals will run out.

What is happening is a war crime. Civilians are being deliberately slaughtered and the international community cannot muster up a single word of criticism for the Israeli Government. More than 2 million people live in Gaza, 50% of whom are children. It is the most densely populated open-air prison on the planet so when Israel drops its bombs, civilians have nowhere to run. Now, they do not have food, water or electricity. Soon the Internet will also die, and they will be completely cut off from the world. The people of Gaza have days, a week at most. I am deeply concerned at the EU response to this crisis and the failure of Ursula von der Leyen to condemn the Israeli Government for its bombardment of Gaza. Does the Tánaiste share my concerns about the EU's response?

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