ON MONDAY EVENING, while Palestinians slept uneasily amidst the scattered rubble and emergency refuge centres of their ruined homes in Gaza, Israel launched one of its deadliest aerial offensives against the beleaguered region since the beginning of the war.
More than 400 people were killed – almost half of them children – and thousands more were injured in a series of airstrikes which the International Red Cross described simply as ‘overwhelming’.
In one notably horrific incident, a mother – whose husband and children lay among the dead – described how the bombs came just as her family was beginning to starve. “My children died hungry,” she said. “I swear by God, my daughter died without suhoor. They grew tired of eating fava beans.”
It will come as no surprise that as the bodies were still being counted, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bragged about how ‘this is just the beginning’ and ‘negotiations will continue only under fire’. Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement which began on 19th January, and it is already feared that these latest events mark a sustained escalation in the conflict.
Yesterday, BBC journalist Lyse Doucet pointed out that these manoeuvres from Netanyahu may have come about as a cynical political tactic to keep extreme right wingers happy within his cabinet. The Prime Minister is hoping to pass a budget through the Knesset later this month and with corruption charges still hanging over his head, he will do everything to cling to his already tenuous position.
It is easy to feel helpless in the face of such horror. Israel receives almost $4 billion annually in military aid from the United States and western countries have been toothless when it comes to suggesting that Israel has not conducted their war against Hamas with due respect to human rights.
Even the mild scolding which Israel received from Ireland last year led to a virtual suspension of diplomatic relations between the two countries. In December, Israel closed its embassy in Dublin over what it perceived as the Irish government’s ‘extreme anti-Israel policies’.
In the face of such frosty overtures from Jerusalem, the Irish government would do well to commit itself to taking some tangible action. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, first tabled by independent Irish senator Frances Black in 2018, has the potential to sanction Israel both economically and politically, sending a message to other countries that Israel is a pariah who should not be engaged with in good faith.
Charitable organisations like Trócaire, civil society groups, as well as thousands of individual campaigners across Ireland, have been campaigning for the Occupied Territories Bill to become Irish law for many years. This bill would definitively end Ireland’s economic trade with illegal Israeli settlements, and put Ireland in the front seat with regards to pursuing justice for oppressed peoples the world over.
