Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I have a genuine fear for the reverberations and scars Gaza will have on humanity for generations to come. International law has been rendered meaningless. The primacy of United Nations institutions has been decimated.

We recalled many times in this House and across chambers all over the world the phrase "never again". It became the battle cry of humanity after the Holocaust. The phrase that will be used by generations to come in respect of what happened to Palestinians will be "too little, too late", because the making of what we have witnessed in Gaza in recent months has been coming for decades. Israel, repeatedly, for decade upon decade broke one international law after another when it engaged in occupation, annexation, illegal settlements and mass forced displacements. People warned decades ago that the trajectory was leading to a genocide. Unfortunately, the horrendous events of 7 October were used as the excuse for Israel to carry out the genocide we are now witnessing live on our television screens. Whatever the world is doing in response is too little, too late. I genuinely hope and pray we are at the point where a ceasefire is immanent. I hope that humanitarian aid, food and water is making its way to the children, women and men of Gaza. The work for humankind will only begin on that day. I genuinely fear it will take as many decades as it took to reach this point to get to the point where future generations will forgive the world and all those political leaders who allowed it to get to this point. We must make a start today. There must be a ceasefire, there must be the delivery of humanitarian aid and the world must finally demand that Israel stop its absolute barbarity.

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