Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

Other Opposition Senators and I have come together today to bear witness to the human catastrophe that is going on in Gaza as we speak. We are putting on the record of the Seanad the names of some of the children who did not reach their first birthday. As well as the names of journalists, including reporters, writers, photographers and video directors, who were killed trying to show the world a livestreamed genocide, you will hear the names of healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, dentists and pharmacists who all died while trying to save lives in the most desperate of circumstances. Many of them had to operate with no anaesthesia, with makeshift equipment and with carnage all around them. The criteria to be included on the list of the dead are that a person has to have died violently, been brought to hospital and been identified. As such, many names are missing because people cannot identify their loved ones. The total figures I have today are: 110 children under one year old, that is, babies under one who have died; 1,400 healthcare workers killed while doing their lifesaving work; and 180 journalists killed while trying to report the horror to us. Despite the regular calls for a debate in this Chamber on the genocide happening in Gaza, we have not had one. We also have not had sufficient meaningful action from this Government. We still have arms being flown through Ireland, the Central Bank is still selling Israeli war bonds and we still have trade being conducted with the occupied Palestinian territory. We cannot claim to have credibly acted to stop this genocide happening.

I will now take the time to read out some of the names of the dead. Some of the babies under one year old include: Oday Mohammed Rafiq Al-Sultan, Mohammed Nidal Hisham Attallah and Masa Mohammed Youssef Nasr. The journalists include: Ahmed Maher Ahmed, aged 30; Mohamed Ahmed Mahmoud Khair Al-Din, aged 45; and Akram Ahmed Khalil Al-Shafii, aged 53. Some of the doctors who have died include: Dr. Ibrahim Al-Dali, Dr. Nada Mahdi, Dr. Marwa Swelim and Dr. Mamoun Afana. I will now list some of the nurses who have died: Ezzo Afana, Badr Mohammed Abu Daqah, Rana Shalaby and Zainab Al-Sharafi. There are so many names. We could be here all day if we wanted to pay tribute to all the people who have died in Gaza but we simply do not have the time.

An article on RTÉ's website today stated that 14,000 babies could die in the next 48 hours if aid is not allowed into Gaza. We are not doing enough. We are not doing enough as a country, as a government, as western Europe, as democracies or as the UN. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. That includes me. I am not pointing fingers at any individual people. We are all complicit in this. In 40 years, we will read about this in history books and shake our heads with shame. Famine is a trauma that we in Ireland have faced, as Senator Joe Conway so beautifully put it. Why are we allowing it to happen in 2025? We know it is happening. It is one of the worst catastrophes in the modern age and we should all be ashamed.