Michael Mullins (Fine Gael)
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I would like to join in the welcome to Mr. Sourani and Mr. Walsh. What they outlined to us is truly shocking and appalling. The statistics provided to us by Trócaire highlight the appalling situation that exists. I apologise for having to leave the meeting; I missed some of the other contributions. The witnesses referred briefly to the lack of construction activity in Gaza since 2014 and the fact that it would take 25 years to reconstruct all the buildings that had been levelled. Has the policy on the transportation of building materials been loosened up in recent times? What progress, if any, has been made recently? It was stated that 80% or 90% of the water is unfit for human consumption. How is the community managing to survive in Gaza with that level of contamination and lack of infrastructure?

The question we all have to ask is how, politically, we can keep the pressure on Israel to loosen up on the curtailment of activity in Palestine and to improve the human rights situation. It appears that it is ignoring all international law. Nobody is being brought before the International Criminal Court. Why is that? What can the international community, Europe and, in particular, our Government do to bring pressure to bear on the international community to examine the very serious situation which has persisted? Over 2,000 civilians, as well as 550 children, have been killed in the past seven years. Everybody seems to be acting with impunity. They are my main concerns.

Mr. Walsh and Mr. Sourani referred to legitimised torture and killings and to the fact that the people have been turned into a nation of beggars, a phrase which struck me very severely, depending totally on the goodwill of other nations to provide the very basic necessities of life. This is a major human rights situation which involves crimes against humanity. How can we act collectively to bring the people responsible before the International Court of Justice? How can we help the people in Gaza? We are all here to learn how we can assist Mr. Sourani even further and to compliment him on the wonderful work he has done to highlight all of the human rights abuses over a long period of time. We all feel pretty helpless and disappointed that very little progress has been made, particularly in recent years.