Sir, – As we mark one year of the so-called Gaza ceasefire, the world must ask what it actually means for the almost two million people who are still displaced and living in dire conditions.
The ceasefire exists only in name and has not delivered protection or recovery. There must also be accountability for what happened to civilians in Israel on October 7th.
What does the ceasefire mean for the mother whose desperately sick child cannot get urgently needed medication? Or the family who are hungry because they can’t get enough food?
Since the so-called ceasefire, one child has been killed a day in Gaza, and more than 1,400 Palestinians in total.
READ MORE
The reality is that not one of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is fully operational. More than 18,500 patients, including at least 4,000 children, need medical evacuation. More than 1,000 patients have died waiting.
There are 1.4 million people facing hunger and disease with food supplies scarce, and bombed sanitation systems continuing to drive the spread of preventable disease.
Women and girls are suffering most. Nearly one in four households is headed by a woman.
Devastated health services mean pregnant women with potentially fatal complications go without care. There is a significant increase in women seeking obstetric and gynaecological care due to miscarriage, threatened miscarriage, pregnancy-related bleeding, hypertension, severe anaemia and other conditions closely linked to extremely challenging conditions.
Another harsh winter is around the corner and families living in shelters and tents will freeze and be washed out with floods. The closure of crucial border points and the Israeli restrictions on life-saving aid and construction materials are threatening lives and hampering recovery.
More than 100 humanitarian, human rights and other civil society organisations, including ActionAid, have signed a statement saying that the killing and deprivation in Gaza cannot be normalised under the cover of a ceasefire agreement. They say the ceasefire exists in name only and has not delivered protection or recovery.
Ireland must use every diplomatic channel, including its presidency of the council of the EU, to demand an end to attacks on civilians, unhindered humanitarian access and materials needed to rebuild.
It must also press for accountability under international law.
The test of a ceasefire is whether people can live safely. This test has miserably failed for the people of Gaza. – Yours, etc,
KAROL BALFE,
ActionAid Ireland,
Dublin
