Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In relation to what is happening in Gaza I want to make some remarks. What happened last Saturday must be classified as utterly unforgivable, utterly wrong and completely inexcusable. To invade across an internationally recognised boundary, round up people and slaughter them and bring some of them back across the boundary for the purpose of making them hostages is a crime against humanity, in my view, and cannot be excused. I was extremely worried, then, when I heard Prime Minister Netanyahu say that the Israeli response would echo across history. I was equally worried by the failure of UN member states much more powerful than ours to acknowledge the point that the Irish UN delegation was making.This was that the use of force in these circumstances, of a kind that deploys massive force against civilians, is itself also likely to be a crime, a war crime and a crime against humanity. Reducing Gaza, which is a location where unparalleled international neglect and cruelty are being visited upon a people, to rubble and bringing it back to the Stone Age, removing water, electricity, sewerage, health facilities and all energy from a people, and then bombing them and their buildings with such ferocity that it will reduce their urban areas to a state of being uninhabitable, is inexcusable. Nothing should be said in these Houses which in any way encourages the Israeli Government to use disproportionate, unlawful and vindictive retribution against innocent people who had nothing to do with what happened last Saturday.