Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Right at this moment, we are witnessing the genocide of the people of Gaza after years of witnessing their destruction and the pain inflicted upon them by an apartheid regime while the world sat back and watched it happen. We are told, and I have heard a few times in this Chamber, that even wars have rules. It cannot be the case that the breaking of those rules is okay for some countries. When the Israeli Government blatantly told us on the world stage that it would break international law once again, instead of outrage and horror, we witnessed Ursula von der Leyen telling Benjamin Netanyahu that the EU stands with Israel, apparently in our name. Well it is not in my name and not in the names of many Irish people. We stand with the ordinary citizens; we stand with the citizens of Gaza who have been described as human animals. When we see the breaking of international law and the cutting off of water, food and electricity to the people of Gaza, that is clearly a war crime. When we see the indiscriminate bombing of the people of Gaza, that too is clearly a war crime. It is also a war crime when we see the bombing of civilian infrastructures. If Gazans do not die as a result of Israeli bombing, they will certainly die as a result of the cutting off of water and of thirst, hunger and disease because of those war crimes. We have seen that the systematic killing is not limited to the ordinary citizens of Gaza. It also includes people who speak truth to power, including journalists who tell the world about the barbaric nature of the apartheid regime. We were united in horror in this Chamber when Shireen Abu Akleh was killed. We have witnessed the killing of more journalists. At that time, after the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was forgotten, soon our lives moved on. The lives of the ordinary people of Gaza could not move on because they continued to suffer under the apartheid regime. We must, as Irish people and as Members of this Dáil, call for an immediate ceasefire. We do not have the luxury of saying we do not know what the people of Gaza are going through. We must be united in calling for an immediate ceasefire.

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