Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)

I welcome the cross-party motion. I welcome the families and I can only imagine the stress they are going through. I have a constituent, Caitríona Graham, whose mother has been down to me in Arklow and has been in touch regularly. I have been on to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade directly and I really feel it is totally on top of the situation, but I ask it to continue to be that way because it must be absolutely heart-wrenching. I must also mention Senator Andrews and Deputy Heneghan. We might not agree on everything, but they are our colleagues and that is so important too. We meet them on the corridors and we have chats. I can only imagine what they are going through this evening as well.

Let us be very clear: 7 October should not have happened and the hostages should be released. We have never witnessed anything like this in our lifetime. We have never witnessed such a devastating genocide, which has been livestreamed to our very homes. This is where we have seen starvation being used as a weapon of war. Everyone has the right to eat and access food. What we are witnessing is hell on earth, while only miles away, trucks are sitting there bursting with food and supplies.

This war would not happen without the billions of dollars in foreign support and arms. Governments, including our own, must take a moral responsibility. Why did so many countries in the international community just sit on their hands and witness so many killings of the innocents? Why does Israel need to kill journalists? The media is only targeted when the enemy is the truth. It is killing medics. There were 36 hospitals targeted in Gaza. There are only 36 hospitals in Gaza. Then, there is the killing of children. Some 18,000 children that we know of have died. Of those, 1,800 were under the age of one. Those 1,800 children were killed before they could walk. What in God's name can a five-year-old do? Why kill children? I spoke to somebody last week and they put it very clearly. This is actually not about Palestine; it is about the way we want to live. Do we want to see wars and mass starvations, controlled by multimillionaires and their lobbyists sitting in their ivory towers? Is that the way the world is going to go? This is not a war. This is a test and, my God, have many nations in this world failed it.

I visited Egypt in the past few weeks. I sat on a bed with somebody who is dying because of what is happening in Gaza. I played football with orphans out there who lost their parents because of what happened in Gaza. I held the hand of a two-year-old child who had bullet wounds because of what happened in Gaza. This is so wrong on so many levels. I took two things back from there when I got on the plane home. The first was the knowledge people had of the support and the lead given by the Irish people - and Deputies are right about that - but also the Irish Government. The second was the memory of those teenagers who had half the body weight of normal teenagers and their anger and annoyance at having seen their parents, brothers and sisters having been killed. What will they be like when they are 21 and 22 and they hold on to that anger? That is my fear, not for Israel but for the world when we unleash these angry young men and women on it.

We are a small nation. We have stood up, but we have to continue to stand up. Let us just pray for a ceasefire. A lot has happened in the past 24 hours, but it is very hard to see a long-term resolution unless everyone is around the table.

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