Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Humanity itself is on the line in Gaza. With every Palestinian killed in Israel's genocidal war, with every innocent Gaza child whose beautiful life is horrifically extinguished, with every family wiped out, home destroyed and hospital decimated, and with every refugee camp bombed, the humanity of the world slips further into the darkness. Ireland must now confront that darkness. Ireland must confront this genocide and seek justice for the Palestinian people. Ireland must join the case against Israel in the International Court of Justice under the genocide convention. South Africa has shown the world what it means to lead with moral conviction and integrity.

Last Friday's preliminary judgment by the ICJ is hugely significant. It established South Africa has a case and Israel a case to answer on the grounds of genocidal actions. The Tánaiste had stated the Government would consider intervention in South Africa's case once the court had made its preliminary orders. There now remains no excuse for the Government not to act or join South Africa in challenging Israel's impunity.

It is not enough for the Minister of State to rehash the same old lines or point to what he claims are minor textual changes. The kind of textual change the Government wants is the distinction between clarity, purpose and action on one hand, and dithering, delay and shameful inaction on the other. The Government's approach to this matter is massively disappointing and does not tally with the Irish instinct to do what is just and right for a brutalised people.

Today in the Dáil, the Taoiseach said the Irish Government is undertaking rigorous legal analysis regarding its options, as if those facing genocide in Gaza have all the time in the world. They do not. Some 26,000 Palestinians have already been killed, mostly women and children, and 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced. They have very little water or food and nowhere to go. In Gaza, nowhere is safe. This blockaded, impoverished refugee population now faces famine and disease. When Israel does not end Palestinian lives by gunfire or air strike, it will attempt to end them by starvation and disease. Gaza's health infrastructure has been obliterated. Medical supplies are running out. Medical procedures are carried out without anaesthetic or antibiotics. These are the very markers of genocide.

I want to quote Dr. Deborah Harrington, an obstetrician who worked at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital. I think her words capture the unfathomable horror inflicted on the people of Gaza:

A child came in alive, literally burnt to the bone ... their face was just charcoal, and they were alive and talking. And we had no morphine.

Dr. Harrington also said she saw children with "open fractures, partial amputations, open chest wounds, horrendous lacerations ... and burns, and that was every day." That these brutalised children could be considered the lucky ones speaks to the utter depravity of Israel’s merciless onslaught. The unlucky children are no longer here. Their tomorrows have been wiped out in the whirlwind of hatred that Netanyahu and his military machine have rained down on the Palestinians over the last 115 days. This is not only a genocidal war; it is a genocidal war on children.

On television and social media, the world and its leaders have watched Gaza become a graveyard for children and, shamefully, nothing has been done to put a stop to it. While the ICJ did not use the word "ceasefire", the only way to operationalise its ruling is through an immediate, full and permanent ceasefire. Israel’s slaughter must be stopped. By intervening in the South African case in The Hague, Ireland would become the first European nation to seek justice for the people of Gaza through the international justice system. We all know the famous saying, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." Let us be under no illusions that what Israel is inflicting on the people of Gaza is evil. Ireland is a nation of good people - a people with our own story about oppression, colonisation, dispossession and famine, and we must now do something. That something, in this time and in this place, must be to join with South Africa in its case to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people. Therefore, the Government must show courage. It must stand for humanity. The time for dithering, fence-sitting and hedging your bets is over. It is now time to act on our behalf, and the Government must act.

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