Protest outside Department of Health calls for urgent action to evacuate parents and siblings of Gazan children in Ireland

"the process is dangerously and agonisingly slow, and the children already here risk losing more family members at any moment to bombs, sniping, shrapnel or starvation."

"As a mother and a grandmother, I am distraught for the Palestinian mothers here looking after their sick and injured children, while terrified for the fate of their other children stuck in Gaza. The Government must act now to bring those children to safety and back to their mothers."

"As a father, I can't imagine the anguish of those fathers and their children trapped under bombs in Gaza and facing death by starvation. We need action now! This is a life-or-death situation. There is no time to lose."

Gazan family members were joined at a protest by Irish artists, healthcare workers, students, student evacuees from Gaza, Pals for Palestine and Mothers Against Genocide. The group urged the Departments of Health, Justice and Foreign Affairs to jointly implement an emergency protocol to evacuate 26 parents and siblings of Gazan children already in Ireland. The three departments have pledged to help, but the process is described as dangerously slow, putting children at risk of losing family members to bombs, sniping, shrapnel or starvation. Nine of the 26 are under 18, ages range from eight to 16; seven are adult dependent children and nine are parents. Speakers at the demonstration, including Mary Black and Fiachna Ó Braonáin, called for immediate government action to bring the relatives to safety and reunite them with the children.

Read at Irish Independent