Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I start by thanking the Tánaiste, his team and his officials for putting this motion together and giving us the opportunity to have a cross-party debate.

Sadly, we are in a much darker place than we were when last we were here condemning what is happening in Gaza. No matter what side of the House we sit on, we are watching horror unfold before our eyes. This is true not just of all of us in this Chamber but of all of us across the nation and the globe. Many of us feel helpless and want to shout "Stop". Ireland has done this. We were one of the first countries to call for a ceasefire. The cold and brutal reality, though, is that others are benefiting from the horror happening in Gaza. The arms trade is profiteering and, in some places, politicians are garnering votes off the back of the killing of innocent civilians. That is absolutely sickening.

We live in an era of misinformation and disinformation. Facts have never been more important. The facts are that 25,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the Hamas attack on Israel and 70% of them have been women and children. Today, the biggest concerns of NGOs like Sadaka – The Ireland Palestine Alliance, is Gaza's newest deadly threat, namely, starvation. The majority of people in Gaza are technically and actually experiencing real-life famine right now. This is in addition to having been displaced, to not having clean water and to living at ongoing risk of disease. The people of Palestine are under continuous deadly threats of attacks, of bombs and now of starvation.

Hamas killed Israelis on Israeli soil and it still holds 130 hostages. This is absolutely wrong, and I condemn it completely. It is indisputable that what Israel is doing is so far beyond disproportionate. I have spent time in Palestine and I have seen first-hand the utter disdain with which Israeli soldiers at point treated Palestinians in their own land. I cannot begin to imagine the pain and suffering that they are inflicting on a civilian population right now. The Tánaiste has been on the ground in the region and because of his work and the hard work of our officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and our international collaborations, Irish hostages were released. This is why I reluctantly accept that we still need diplomatic channels in place even now with Israel. It is because, unfortunately, an ICJ ruling is not going to end this war. Only negotiations and diplomacy can do that.

Ireland has shown international leadership in this regard. We already have a court case holding Israel to account and our Attorney General will travel in a couple of weeks' time to The Hague to give evidence there. Ireland was among the first countries to call for a ceasefire, and we are using our diplomatic channels to assert Palestinians' right to assert their own state. We are providing practical support on the ground too in terms of aid and funding to NGOs and to institutions like the ICJ and the ICC, which need to hold Israel to account. Tonight, we are confirming Ireland's commitment to saying "Stop" - stop the death and stop the destruction in Gaza. We are saying "Yes" to safe and unhindered humanitarian aid that is so needed in that area. Most importantly, though, we are saying that Ireland will support the ICJ's preliminary response and that once the case is filed we can then intervene, just as we did at that point with Russia and Ukraine.

The Israel Defense Forces' mission is defence and their goal is security. Imagine defence and security is their motto. What the Israel Defense Forces are doing right now, though, is immeasurably beyond defence and it is causing nothing but instability right across the region. The Israel Defense Forces are renowned for their precision and state-of-the-art technologies, yet 70% of the people they are killing are women and children. A country with that big of a defence budget and that well-trained of a defence force and with that capability of technology simply does not do that by accident. They do that on purpose. In my view, and I am not a lawyer or an international expert, that has to be genocide. This is why Ireland must support the institutions of the ICC and the ICJ and why, as soon as it is legally appropriate, we as a Government and as a nation must intervene in that case. This is how we will send a clear and strong international signal.

How we do not send a clear and international signal, by the way, is by fighting among ourselves about whether stopping the war and a ceasefire are the same things. That is not helpful and it is not unity. It is simply playing to the national gallery when right now we need to be playing to the international gallery. That must be our audience. Stopping the war or a ceasefire, whatever way we put it, Palestinians in Gaza have to stop dying. This is the goal. This is the shared goal. If it is the shared goal, then, let us get on the same page.

Meanwhile, as we have these incredible debates, people are dying. By the time we finish this debate today, 13 women will have given birth and those 13 babies will have been born into hell on earth, into utter destruction and devastation.

Families are being wiped out, communities are being ravaged and schools and hospitals are being blown to bits. It has to stop and Ireland says "Stop". We have been a lonely voice internationally. Now, South Africa is that lonely voice and we must join it.

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