Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

Night after night on our news channels we see the devastation as bombs rain down on the innocent civilians in Gaza. Aid has only begun to trickle into Gaza after 11 weeks without anything, and we are told today that this is only six aid trucks. It is only a drop in the ocean of what is required and what this state was used to before the bombardment started. As a country that recently commemorated our own Gorta Mór, in the psyche of the Irish people famine now waits for Palestine. It has become a weapon for Israel. It is, as our President has said, forced starvation. We have children who are starving, malnourished, too weak to cry. It is like something from an historical Dickens novel. However, this is no novel; it is genocide by the Israeli state. The Labour Party has continued to call on Government to enact the occupied territories Bill in full and I welcome the update on that this afternoon. We will, as my colleague Deputy Smith says, bring a motion to debate on the floor of this House next week and it is already encouraging to see the support the House is giving that particular motion.

I acknowledge the Palestinian ambassador in the Public Gallery, whom we met today. She described the situation in Gaza as being beyond anybody's imagination. It seems Israel is being treated by some in the international community as a state beyond international law while Israel does everything in its power to end the State of Palestine. As my colleague has asked, the question is what the UN is doing in all of this. Last weekend I listened to a British surgeon who is working in Gaza. He said, "I mean, it's difficult to describe in words what's happening here ... [with the] constant sound of bombardment jets overhead. ... If Cambodia was the killing fields, then Gaza now is the slaughterhouse." What we need is a ceasefire now.

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