Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste rightly described the need for urgent action following the natural disaster that has afflicted people in the Philippines. However, a man-made disaster on a similar scale has been occurring in Gaza every day for years and the humanitarian situation is worsening by the day. When will we say "enough is enough" to Israel? The lack of fuel at Gaza's power plant means there are power outages for between 12 and 17 hours a day. Patients in hospitals with leukaemia and rheumatoid arthritis do not have the medicines they need. Fishermen were shot at by the Israelis for the umpteenth time in the past week 1.5 km from the Gaza coast as they went out to fish. Israel is trying to strangle and decimate Gaza. Is it the case that the only time we care about the people of Gaza is when they are being bombed, and we ignore their plight while they are being slowly strangled by a vicious and concerted campaign of destruction being wreaked on them by Israel?

What are we doing about this?

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