To protest against Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza is to be more than a mere witness to a conflict that has claimed some 40,000 lives since the invasion began, “but also a part of the solution”, those attending a vigil on O’Connell Street in Dublin city centre were told on Friday.
About 500 people attended the event which started outside the Dáil, from where the participants marched in silence to the Spire and heard speakers call for sanctions against Israel and an immediate ceasefire.
The event was one of 30 organised across the country by a coalition of anti-war groups to mark the 300th day of the invasion which followed an attack on Israel on October 7th in which 1,200 people were killed. Hundreds of civilians were murdered while a further 250 civilians and armed services personnel were abducted.
Since the subsequent invasion of Gaza by Israel, the vigil was told, an average of about 70 children have been killed every day with no end in the sight to the killing.
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“The past 300 days have not only stalled the life, dreams, job, homes and memories of the people in Gaza,” the crowd was told by Salah Altanany, whose wife and two children escaped Gaza to join him in Ireland earlier this year. “It also has robbed the world of much of its humanity. It has removed the mask of many world leaders who claimed to believe in freedom, human rights, justice and international law.”
Betty Purcell of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign cited a recent Lancet paper that suggested far more people may been killed during the conflict than has been reflected in the official figures, with many deaths having gone undiscovered or unconfirmed due to the huge level of destruction.
“It is an unconscionable and enraging catastrophe played out before our very eyes on social media and television,” she said before paying tribute to the many Palestinian journalists who have been killed since the invasion began.
She said the Irish Government must act by imposing sanctions on Israel, whose own government seemed intent on further escalation.
The call was echoed by Talha AlAli, an activist and artist from the West Bank who has been living in Ireland for several years.
He said many governments were undermining their own countries’ democracy, by failing to take action to stop the bombing by no longer supplying arms, when that was what their populations wanted them to do.
He contended, however, that it was part of a familiar pattern.
“It’s the same classical narrative as in other countries,” he said. “They destroyed Iraq, and then they gave them loans in order to rebuild again. It’s the same in Syria, the same with Libya.
“But still I believe there is hope as long as people are marching.”
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