Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The priorities in Gaza must be an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas, ensuring accountability for violations of international humanitarian law, and addressing the stark humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people. Humanitarian access to Gaza and a massive scaling up of aid are essential to meet the extreme levels of need of the population.

Ireland’s response to the crisis has included the provision of in-kind assistance in addition to significant humanitarian funding. We have has provided €40 million in humanitarian assistance in response to the suffering caused by the conflict in Gaza since last October. This includes €20 million provided in February in immediate core funding for 2024 for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA is mandated to provide life-saving essential services for 5.7 million Palestinian refugees, across the region. In 2023, we provided €18 million in core funding to UNRWA.

We have also supported the responses of the UN OCHA Occupied Palestinian Territories Humanitarian Fund, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organisation and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Each of these agencies have the experience and capacity to deliver assistance, to the extent possible in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

Ireland is also using our well-established partnership with the UN Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) to deliver aid supplies to Gaza. As this involves humanitarian supplies which we have already pre-positioned in the region, there is no requirement for the use of an Irish military aircraft. This method of delivering aid has proven to be effective, with 50 tonnes of Irish Aid shelter items delivered to Gaza in December.

A further delivery of Irish Aid humanitarian supplies has left the UNHRD in Dubai and is expected to arrive in Amman in the coming days for onward transport to Gaza. This involves 66 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, including tents, tarpaulins, water tanks, hygiene kits and kitchen sets from our supplies in the UNHRD warehouse in Dubai.