Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As we speak, ethnic cleansing of the world's largest open-air prison is happening. That is a war crime. The people of Gaza have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. To add to the torture of knowing that each moment could be their last as bombs rain down upon them, the Israeli blockade now means that Palestinians are left thirsting for water, hungering for food, suffering with no medicines and huddling in the dark with their electricity cut off. It is simply terror upon terror. Hospitals, ambulances and medical personnel are deliberately targeted by Israel. Innocent civilians trying to get away along the approved evacuation routes are deliberately targeted. Evacuees directed to the border crossings are deliberately targeted. Israel is ordering doctors to abandon sick and injured patients in hospitals and when doctors refuse to do so they bomb the hospitals. It is ordering the elderly and infirm to run for their lives or they too will die. These are all war crimes. Collective punishment is a war crime. Deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime. Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime. This is not the first time Israel has committed these war crimes in Gaza but it is the first time the Israelis have bragged on international television about what they were going to do ahead of time and they were given unconditional support by the so-called leaders of the West.

The Palestinian people have very few powerful friends in the world so it is vital that Ireland tells Israel to stop the shelling, the air strikes and the slaughter and collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Israel's record on war crimes, bombings, displacement, torture and humiliation of the Palestinian people over decades is there for the whole world to see. Its stance towards the Palestinian people is a stain on the conscience of humanity. For the sake of humanity, there must be a full and immediate ceasefire.

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