Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have run out of words to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza and now in Lebanon. This week, I and millions of other people, watched a young man in a hospital tent burn alive. He was still attached to an IV drip and was reaching out his hand for help. The Israeli army had targeted a missile strike on tents in the grounds of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Not content with destroying all the hospitals in Gaza, it is now bombing the ruins. The name of the man who died was Shaban al-Dalou. He was 19 years old and a computer engineer student. Shaban was sheltering in a tent on the hospital grounds with his parents and his five siblings. He had been there for some time. In February, in a social media video, he said his family had been displaced five times. He had been trying to leave Gaza and reach safety. On his GoFundMe page he wrote:

I used to have big dreams, but the war has ruined them ... Time feels like it's stopped in Gaza, and we're stuck in a never-ending nightmare.

Shaban is one of more than 40,000 people in Gaza who have been slaughtered. His mother also burned alive. I name him here today because we do not hear the names or see the faces of the victims in Gaza. Every single one of those more than 40,000 people had a life, a family and hopes and dreams, but they have been massacred in a glorified prison camp for more than 12 months while the world sits idly by. Journalists in Gaza who have been documenting this genocide have been targeted and killed too, to stop them broadcasting Israel's war crimes to the world. How can we watch this massacre every single day and not do more? The Israeli state has lost any pretence of morality or proportionality. It is a rogue state, which is attempting to plunge the whole region into war. This Government, which talks tough on Israel, has yet to apply any actual sanctions. Our economic diplomatic and travel relationship with Israel is virtually unchanged. We now learn the Government is finally going to move on the occupied territories Bill because the legal advice is that the International Court of Justice, ICJ, ruling in the summer has changed things. Illegal Israeli settlements were a breach of international law when the occupied territories Bill was drafted in 2018. The genocide unfolding in Gaza was a breach of international law last year. We did not need the ICJ ruling to act. The ruling just means the Government has run out of excuses for inaction. With an election imminent, the Government has almost run out of time to do anything. Everyone in this House will co-operate to get the occupied territories Bill enacted. It seems like the election will be in a matter of weeks. What is being done to get this over the line before then?

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