Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am sharing time with Deputies Kelly and Nash.

I thank my colleague Deputy Smith for bringing this motion before the House. We have been here many times before. The reality is that we have almost 500,000 women, men and children now being starved to death in front of our eyes. Approximately 1 million more people are on the brink of starvation and, yet, there are 116,000 metric tonnes of food, more than four-months supply, sitting metres from where hundreds of thousands of people live.

Let us make no mistake here. This is a war on children. This is a war intent on cutting off the future of those thousands of children in Palestine. It is a war intent on the annihilation of the Palestinian people, a war so depraved that even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who certainly has not covered himself in glory previously, says this is a war motivated "knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated", "a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians." Those words are an understatement of what is happening right now in Gaza.

Over recent months, any of us who have criticised the Israeli Government have been accused of anti-Semitism. I defy anyone looking at the pictures yesterday of the food distribution centres to say that they show any kind of humanity or dignity. I defy anyone looking at the children with bullets in their chests, or the reports of children with bullets to their heads to say this is anything other than an act of depravity. People are forced to walk 15 km, the young, the old and the disabled excluded. There are pictures of people squeezed into an orderly pen. It looks like a concentration camp and I do not say that lightly. The deliberate positioning of the food camp to the south is to force an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from the north. During the week Antonio Guterres said that just a teaspoon of aid is being let in. The forced starvation of people into submission, into complete defeat is an abomination. I cannot get the image out of my head that has been circulating during the week, of Siwar Ashour, a six-month-old baby. That image haunts my mind, those glassy, outsized eyes, the emaciated arms, what looks like a smile. I fed my own three babies and it is the most remarkable feeling to be able to give life, nutrition and growth from a mother's body to a baby, but right now the mothers of Gaza cannot do that. Babies are being condemned to death.

The motion today is about taking action. It is not just about decrying the depraved acts we are seeing in front of us right now, but saying that we need to show moral leadership at the United Nations. We have been saying it for months with regard to the occupied territories Bill and I welcome in part what the Government is doing, albeit we are deeply disappointed about the services. I was under no illusions when I listened to the Taoiseach yesterday trying to minimise what the occupied territories Bill could do, saying it amounts to a small amount of goods. It is only between €500,000 and €1 million but we should not underestimate the symbolism of passing the occupied territories Bill. On the Israeli war bonds that are currently being licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland, if the law is wrong, we need to change the law. The Government's approach on this is really disappointing. We could change the law if we saw fit but the Government is choosing not to. This is about doing everything within our power as a small country to ensure that we take a stance, that we are not looking back in 50 years' time and saying we failed the Palestinian people as they were being wiped out.

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