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

Israel is committing blatant abuses of international law every single second in Gaza. Palestinian civilians are trapped in the world's largest open-air prison, a prison that their jailer is indiscriminately dropping bombs on. More than 25,000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on Gaza in the past month. When a missile strikes and buildings collapse, there is no fuel or machinery, or anything to dig out the men, women and children who are buried under the rubble. The people who survive the initial strikes are slowly dying under mountains of rubble.

The stench of death is everywhere in Gaza and still the bombs rain down. As we all know that Netanyahu's far-right Government has no intention of stopping this, we must do whatever we can to stop this massacre. That means using every means at our disposal to exert whatever influence we can. I know that around the Israel-EU trade agreement, that would happen at an EU level and that is why I am raising this with the Taoiseach to see if he will raise it at the next European Council meeting, to request the suspension of Israel's trade deal with the EU on the basis of its breach of the clear and unambiguous human rights clause in that agreement.

That is at EU level. At a national level we could introduce the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill. There are several things the Taoiseach could do and given what is going on, will the Taoiseach please address those two particular issues in his reply?

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