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

The Palestinian struggle has gone on for generations. The catastrophe of the Nakba was only the start. For 76 years, the story of Palestine has been one of colonisation; occupation; apartheid; violent and brutal human rights atrocities at the hands of the Israeli state and its ferocious military; daily oppression that sees Palestinians killed, jailed, tortured and forced from their lands; homes, schools and health facilities bulldozed to the ground as illegal settlers violently overtake Palestinian lands and villages in direct violation of international law. Palestine is a nation threatened by annihilation. The world was always going to face a moment of reckoning on Palestine. As Israel continues its brutal onslaught on the refugee population of Gaza and launches horrific missile attacks on Rafah, the moment of reckoning is now.

Rafah is the place where hundreds of thousands of Gazans were forcefully displaced in the wake of Israel’s initial bombardment. There is nowhere left for them to flee to, nowhere left to go. They are trapped. On Sunday, as Israel bombed a refugee tent camp and took countless lives, it described it as a "tragic mistake". Today, it was reported that seven more lives have been taken by Israeli air strikes in Rafah and there will be more slaughter unless Israel is confronted by the world. The life of a Palestinian child is worth the same as that of a child anywhere else in the world but where is the protection of international law for every child killed in Gaza, for every child who will be killed in Rafah? We have all seen the images of heartbroken Palestinian mothers inconsolably weeping over their dead children, their entire world collapsed forever into tiny white sheets; fathers desperately digging their children out of rubble, knowing that they have breathed their last; little boys and little girls, horrifically injured, covered in debris being rushed into hospitals already overwhelmed with the maimed and the dying. This is a criminal war on the young. Half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 18. If you are a child of 11 years in Gaza, you have already endured four Israeli military bombardments. For eight months, Netanyahu has conducted a war on children and the world has looked the other way.

This annihilation is the cruel crescendo of 76 years of occupation and apartheid. Since October, almost 36,000 Palestinians have been killed including 15,000 children. This is not a moment of an intense disagreement between states. Rather this is a moment of catastrophe and savagery, of an Israel that has brazenly and repeatedly broken every international law and acted with impunity and as of yet has not been held to account. For this to stop, the international community has to act. The European Union, Britain and the United States of America must remove political support and end preferential treatment for Israel as it perpetrates crimes against Palestinians with impunity. They must stop funding and arming the Israeli military machine as it commits genocide in Palestine.

The ordinary people of Europe do not want a European Commission that shamefully endorses Israel’s actions. I am conscious that we will have a new European Parliament and a new Commission. I do not believe a European Commission or its President can condone the actions of Israel.

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