Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Apart from the word "genocide", words do not exist to describe the atrocities being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. There is mass murder by bombs and drones, people are crushed to death, suffocated and now there is starvation, diarrhoea, infection and dehydration. The living are maimed, disabled and blinded. There is no anaesthetic for amputations or Caesarean sections. This is all because they are Palestinians; that is the simple reason. An occupied population for so long dehumanised, displaced and now facing genocide, all with billions from America, Germany and the UK.

With Ireland’s history of occupation, displacement and starvation we have a particular duty to name the genocide and act to prevent it and to support South Africa at the International Court of Justice. I thank the Social Democrats for this motion and the thousands of people who have emailed all of us in here. Genocide is not about opinion, but about facts and figures and the facts are there. In 100 days Israel killed over 24,000 people, around 15,000 of whom were children. That figure does not count bodies that were buried alive in the rubble. Israel wields starvation of the population as a weapon of war and cuts off energy, communications and medical aid as it does so. Israel terrorises and shreds that population limb from limb, baby from mother, father from children. Israel bulldozes Palestinian homes, streets, mosques, churches, schools, universities and even cemeteries. Israel shells packed refugee centres, hospitals and UN shelters. Israel’s snipers target surgeons as they operate in battlefield conditions. In cold blood, Israel assassinates doctors, ambulance workers, journalists and their families. What did Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh say at the Hague? She described a genocide on a population being live broadcast to the world. Israeli soldiers are happy to oblige, TikTokking their war crimes for the world to see. They will be shown some day in the Hague.

It is an insult to human intelligence to say that because a genocide was committed against European Jews the State of Israel cannot be accused of genocide. We must call it "genocide" and we must do so at the Hague.

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