Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As we speak here this evening, Israel is raining hell on Gaza. It is horror beyond measure. I am sticking to raw politics tonight because I do not have the language to deal adequately with the human slaughterhouse scenes that we see on our screens. The EU leadership needs to immediately up its game for Gaza and the Palestinian people. Millions of Europeans looked aghast at the antics of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week. In whose name was she acting? What was she doing, thinking she was representing Ireland? Her unilateral actions expose a deep and dangerous gap between an unelected EU governor and the governed. It is a gap in democracy that must be addressed and filled. War crimes are war crimes, regardless of who commits them, Ursula. A right to defend itself does not give anyone carte blancheto bomb, shell, displace and dismantle the Palestinian people for generations. That is an indiscriminate attack, not defence.

I was speaking to the Tánaiste yesterday at the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. We spoke about the intergenerational trauma that the Jewish community must feel across Europe. It is vital that the EU acts immediately to make sure that any inherited cultural guilt around the arrest, transportation and extermination of European Jews held by any European country cannot and must not become a barrier to the protection of the brutalised and defenceless people of Gaza. Palestinians must not pay the price for the sins of Europe. Context is what it is all about.

Once again, I give my condolences in this House to Kim Danti and Emily Hand. I absolutely abhor the Hamas attacks. It must release the hostages, starting with the children. Likewise, Israel must realise child prisoners, starting with the children whom it holds under administrative detention. All children must be returned to their families immediately. As politicians, we must look at this situation in the broader context of the conflict if we want to see an end to the conflict and a real route to peace. We must see it in the context of the occupation, annexation, oppression, apartheid, the pain from 1948 and 1967, the harassment, imprisonment, confinement, death and displacement of the Palestinian people in all the decades since and possibly to come if we do not do something. That history did not start on 7 October. Of course Israel has the right to defend itself. Everyone does, except Gaza and Palestine, and while Israel defends itself, who will defend Gaza from Israeli war crimes? A ceasefire is the only way.

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