MIDDLE EAST: Irish politicians are touring the Gaza Strip to see conditions for themselves. Nuala Haughey, who has been with them, reports from Gaza City.
The demolished homes and razed crops of Palestinian farmers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip give it the air of a place that has been struck by an earthquake.
What once were greenhouses are now heaps of twisted metal poles and rent plastic sheeting; sturdy concrete block houses have been reduced to mounds of grey rubble out of which poke remnants of family life, a floor rug or a child's cardigan.
A cross-party delegation of Irish parliamentarians toured the densely populated strip this week and witnessed the devastation visited on it by Israeli military incursions against Palestinian militants, and the economic impact of severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian goods and people within the strip and into Israel and the West Bank.
The group comprised the Progressive Democrats TD, Ms Liz O'Donnell, Fine Gael TD Mr Simon Coveney, and Independent Trinity College Senator David Norris. Their two-day visit to the Gaza Strip was part of a five-day fact-finding trip to the Palestinian territories and Israel with the international relief and development agency, Christian Aid. The agency works with partner organisations in the occupied Palestinian territories, some of which receive funding from the Government.
About 1.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, which is 28 miles long and six miles wide, and completely fenced off from Israel. Unemployment runs at 65 per cent and some two-thirds of the population live below the UN poverty line in squalor.
The politicians met locals in Gaza including a fishermen with eight children, whose family's livelihood is threatened by Israeli restrictions on fishing in the Mediterranean; and a farmer whose 250-acre farm situated a kilometre from a Jewish settlement was destroyed last month.
They met doctors treating children with infections picked up due to exposure to raw sewage, and drove past bulldozed citrus and olive groves on deeply potholed roads, which contrasted with the pristine highways reserved exclusively for some 6,500 Jewish settlers who live in 19 settlements in Gaza.
Senator Norris said he felt that if Israelis "allowed themselves to see this sort of thing their whole moral world would collapse . . . that Jewish people could do this after what they have been through. I am a long-standing supporter of Israel and I feel betrayed about what the Israeli government is doing here."
Ms O'Donnell contrasted the hopefulness of projects she witnessed in developing countries in Africa when she was a minister of state with the despair of people in Gaza, who are "worn down" by the squalor and politically downtrodden.
"What they are doing is providing emergency relief assistance to people in a war zone, and yet they have been doing it so long it's frustrating for them. It should be long-term development work," she said.
"People did not appear see any prospect for a political settlement and it's very disheartening. They don't see that the Palestinian Authority has the capacity to deliver a settlement."
On Wednesday the group visited Rafah, where Israel has demolished hundreds of houses.
Christian Aid's partner organisations in Gaza include an association which helps farmers restock after military incursions. Mr Coveney said he was pleased to see Irish money going to replant those areas "and I think Irish people can relate to that".
The group also visited a play and therapy centre for children traumatised by the daily violence.