Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo the call by Senator Fitzpatrick for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. I am particularly concerned that in the past few days Netanyahu's Government has called for a major call-up and mobilisation of Israel Defense Forces reservists. We are on the precipice of another major expansion of Israel's military operation in Gaza. Before I speak about the situation, I want to be clear that I condemn Hamas absolutely for their war crimes, their actions on 7 October that were genocidal in nature and intent, their war crimes in holding hostages and the bodies of hostages prisoners against their will and their indiscriminative shelling and rocket fire into Israel and civilian targets. The situation in Gaza at the moment has reached a point of no return.A total of 70% of Gaza's territory is designated no-go areas or military zones. The population of 2.2 million is crammed into an area of less than 100 sq. km. That is, by definition, a Konzentrationslager, or a concentration camp. It is what Himmler described as the operational characteristics of a ghetto. A very good example is the ghetto in Warsaw, Warschauer, in which 500,000 Jews were concentrated into one area, surrounded and deprived of food and water. The people of Gaza have not had a delivery of water or food in ten weeks. They are literally being starved. One survivor of the Holocaust said:

Every day we had a little cup of water. We starved for half a year. There was no life. We were starving.

That is precisely what is happening to our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza, of whom 55,000 have been butchered and slaughtered by the IDF in continued air strikes, which we are facilitating through the onward navigation of military aircraft through our airspace and through the payment by the taxpayer of the navigation fees for those aircraft. A total of 13,000 children have been killed while 20,000 women and girls have been murdered. Of the total killed in Gaza, for shame, 12,000 have been disabled men, women and children. It is the greatest mass disabling event in recent human history. We have an absolute moral imperative to call this out for what it is. It is ethnic cleansing writ large. We must act. Our actions must go beyond words. We must take action. I suggest we revisit the occupied territories Bill as a priority.