21-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
‘Stand with Palestine' event planned for Sligo
The solidarity event 'Stand with Palestine – Stand against Genocide', will highlight the continuing onslaught by Israel on the people of Gaza.
Speaking to The Sligo Champion, the Solidarity Campaign's PRO Chris MacManus said:
'Palestinians in Gaza are living through a hell on earth. More than 52,000 people have been killed in Israel's ongoing genocide.
'Over a million children are in need of mental health and psycho-social support. Nearly two million Gazans are in need of emergency shelter and essential household items.
'We need to be clear - Gaza is being reduced to rubble, and is being purposely denied access to aid and electricity.
'The humanitarian situation there is already desperate, but to see the continuing raining down of terror by an out-of-control Israeli regime whilst Western governments turn a blind eye or worse, facilitate the Israeli military, is horrendous and unjustifiable.
'That failure to hold Israel to account, has reassured Benjamin Netanyahu and allowed his regime to act with impunity. To build a lasting peace, there must be meaningful sanctions for Israel's war crimes, at both national and international level.
'Our Government, here in Ireland must step up and pass the Occupied Territories Bill without any further delay and adopt other sanctions against Israel,' he said.
Meanwhile, the flag of Palestine was hoisted at the offices of Sligo County Council by the Council Cathaoirleach, Cllr Declan Bree, on Thursday last (15th May) to mark the 77th anniversary of Nakba Day and as a gesture of solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Speaking to the The Sligo Champion, Cllr Bree said: 'The 15th of May marks the forced expulsion and displacement of 700,000 thousand Palestinians during the conflict that created the State of Israel in 1948.
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'Since then, al Nakba, Nakba means 'catastrophe' in Arabic, has been engraved in Palestinian collective consciousness as a story of relentless dispossession.
'The crimes that were committed in 1948 draw haunting parallels to the genocidal war which the Israeli regime has been inflicting on the people of Palestine and Gaza over the past year and a half.
'The Nakba started in 1948 and over the last 77 years it actually hasn't stopped.
'Today the people of Gaza are suffering famine, have got no food, no shelter, no electricity, no oil, no gas, no medicine, and nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
'The crisis of child malnutrition has reached catastrophic levels. It is like hell on earth for them right now.
'In this context we now as a matter of extreme urgency need to see the Irish Government exercise its sovereign powers and enact the necessary Occupied Territories legislation that will ensure that Ireland will abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings and will prevent trade or investment relations with Israel in respect of the occupied territories and the illegal settlements.
'In addition we also need the government to use Ireland's voice and influence in international forums—from the EU to the UN - to call for an immediate ceasefire, and also to seek the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, in light of the continuing violations of human rights in Gaza and the Occupied Territory,' he said.
