Letters

A humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza

Failure of international community to bring the carnage to a halt is a stain on humanity

Thu Feb 15 2024 - 00:10

Sir, – The lives of more than a million people are hanging in the balance.

Since October, fighting and bombardment across Gaza have forced 1.7 million people – some 75 per cent of the population – to flee their homes. Most are now in Rafah, crammed into overflowing schools and makeshift camps amid unsanitary conditions. Civilians sheltering in Rafah simply have nowhere else safe to go.

The long failure of the international community to bring the carnage to a halt is a stain on humanity, and has left Gaza teetering on the edge of total catastrophe.

Over 28,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including at least 11,500 children.

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Over 60 per cent of all homes have been damaged or destroyed, rendering the strip a hellscape.

There is also the added horror of 2.2 million people in Gaza at imminent risk of starvation, with nine out of 10 people living on less than one meal a day. Christian Aid has heard directly from people struggling with severe food shortages, saying that those who can bear it often only eat once a day so they can leave more food for the children.

The International Court of Justice ruled there is a plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The court’s legally binding orders on Israel to prevent genocide were made to reduce violence and increase humanitarian aid for civilians.

Yet these orders remain impossible to fulfil in the absence of an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Around 2,000 more Palestinians have been killed since the ICJ ruling and aid deliveries are still routinely blocked.

If the Irish Government agrees with the ICJ that there is a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, it must outline what concrete steps it can take to prevent it.

With tens of thousands already dead, the spectre of famine raising its ugly head, and with over a million people in Rafah at risk of further violence, there can be no delay in Ireland doing all within its power to push the international community into action. – Yours, etc,

ROSAMOND BENNETT,

Chief Executive,

Christian Aid Ireland,

Dublin 2.

Sir, – Next week, 53 states will support South Africa at the public hearings at the International Court of Justice for further measures to prevent the developing genocide. Ireland should be there. And, quite simply, it is past time to pass the Occupied Territories Bill and the Illegal Settlements Bill. Let’s see Ireland do what we can as a sovereign, independent European country. We may be small, but as we showed with South African apartheid, real movement by Ireland can help bring substantial change. – Yours, etc,

BETTY PURCELL,

Dublin 6W.

Sir, – It is disappointing but not surprising to see so many Irish politicians try to out-compete each other in their criticism of Israel and their ever-shrill demands for the expulsion of the ambassador, sanctions, war crimes prosecutions, specious accusations of genocide, and a ceasefire.

Let us not forget that it was Hamas’s unprovoked attack on October 7th leading to the deaths of over 1,100 Israelis that has caused the Israeli response. What did Hamas think the Israeli response would be? A stern letter of protest?

If Irish politicians really wanted the conflict in Gaza to stop, why aren’t they calling for Hamas to order a ceasefire? Why aren’t they calling for Iran to stop funding and supporting Hamas and force it to surrender? Where are the demands to Hamas and its Iranian backers to accept that they are solely responsible for the misery brought on the innocent people of Gaza? Where are the demands for Hamas and its Iranian backers to be brought to justice for their war crimes and crimes against humanity?

The silence from hand-wringing Irish politicians with regard to Hamas and Iran’s role and responsibilities in Gaza is deafening. – Yours, etc,

JASON FITZHARRIS,

Swords,

Co Dublin.

Sir, – Imagine we were to transcend the confines of our planet, into space, where every social construct that our human imaginations have devised does not exist and look back at ourselves and upon humanity from a perspective where there are no politics, no government, no prophets, no prophecies, no religion or no borders, and we’d see the unfathomable tragedy of human beings perpetrating unjustifiable violence against each other, a brutality unparalleled in the natural world. We’d see the human and the inhumane. No other animal slaughters its own species in this way. No other animal obliterates its young as we have witnessed in the last four months. The indiscriminate slaughter, the annihilation of our own kind, stands as a testament to our capacity for inhumanity. Recent months have borne witness to the horrifying spectacle of innocent children torn apart by senseless violence, their once vibrant lives extinguished in the blink of an eye.

In the face of such devastation, it becomes abundantly clear that no ideology or system of belief holds greater value than the sanctity of every human life, especially that of a child. – Yours, etc,

SINEAD LOUGHRAN,

Castleblayney,

Co Monaghan.