Fianna Fail MEP Eoin Ryan has called on all EU governments to put in place a programme to allow children critically injured by the Israeli attacks in Gaza to be treated in European and Irish hospitals.
He said many children with high degree burns would have to have limbs amputated unless they received urgent medical treatment which was unavailable to them in Gaza.
Mr Ryan said the medical services in Gaza were having "real and acute difficulties" dealing with the level of injuries received as a direct consequence of the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
He said he had written to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, to Louis Michel, the European Commissioner responsible for Development Aid issues and to Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Commissioner responsible for External Relations seeking their support for the initiative.
He said the European Union needed to establish dialogue with countries in the Middle East over how best to provide medical treatment to children who "are critically injured in Gaza at present" .
Belgium, in co-operation with the Palestinian Authority, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the only EU country to have brought children over from Gaza for medical operations to be carried out in Belgian hospitals.
Each of the six children were accompanied by one close relative who was given temporary residence in Belgium. The Belgian Government has stated that it is willing to take in as many as 50 children from Gaza for medical treatment.
Mr Ryan said the international community had "a moral obligation to help the children of Gaza and all steps necessary to do this must be put in place at a European level and in co-operation with countries in the Middle East.
