Large crowds assembled outside the United States embassy in Dublin on Saturday afternoon to march to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Saturday’s protest was one of a series of co-ordinated demonstrations across Ireland. Rallies also took place in Galway, Cork, Belfast and Limerick.
Aimed at the Irish Government, the message of the day was a demand for sanctions to be imposed on Israel.
At least 10,000 people were in attendance, according to organisers. Addressing them at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ibtisam Abu Hassira had a personal plea. She arrived in Ireland last December as part of the medevac programme with her younger son, but her older boy and husband remain in a particularly dangerous part of Gaza.
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“She’s really just waiting every second of the day for the dreaded phone call of bad news,” said Dr Caroline Jagoe, a member of Healthcare Workers for Palestine, who translated Abu Hassira’s speech.
“She’s really here today to plead for reunification. The Government has promised reunification, but the process has been unbelievably slow, particularly given the imminent danger every day. Dirty water, starvation, but now [also] ground incursion near the area that her son and husband are.”
In her speech, Abu Hassira thanked the Irish people for their support, but described the “unimaginable terror” inflicted on people in Gaza. “I cannot sleep; I cannot eat; I cannot live in peace knowing they are still in danger,” it read. “I cannot begin a new life here while they struggle simply to survive.
“I just want to live with my son and husband in peace. I just want to be a mother again, not a grieving one.”
Keffiyeh scarves, Palestinian flags and messages of support were common throughout the crowds. A number of Irish Tricolours were also held aloft, one of which belonged to Seán Marlow, originally from Tyrone but living in Ballymun for 45 years. Marlow is a lecturer at DCU who attended his first protest of this kind in the 1970s.
“I remember way back through the apartheid in South Africa; it was the same thing,” he said. “I remember standing with the Dunnes Stores strikers and people laughing, saying: ‘You’re wasting your time.’ But they won in the end.
“Even further back with the Vietnam War, we were out protesting and everybody was saying ‘Ah, you’re just crazy lefties’ and all of this. But America ended up getting out of there. So, you just have to keep fighting it, even though it looks very bleak for the Palestinians.”
Helen Mahony, co-ordinator of the Central Bank – Stop Funding Genocide campaign, was another speaker on the day. She explained the importance of the demonstration’s starting point.
“The US funds and supports [Israel] and blocks all action to try to stop the genocide in Gaza at the UN,” Mahony told The Irish Times. “It’s really important that we start here with our absolute condemnation of what the US is doing. We also march today to demand that the Irish Government take serious and strong sanctions against Israel.
“There’s a single message today, which is a message to the Government to sanction Israel. Enough with the talk; enough with excuses; enough with the hand-wringing. We need to take serious sanctions against Israel. That means passing the Occupied Territories Bill in full. It means stopping American airplanes going through Shannon. It means stopping the flight of munitions over our airspace to Israel and it means absolutely ending all involvement of the Central Bank in the funding of genocide.”
Despite the feeling of helplessness around the devastation in Gaza, Mahony was buoyed by the turnout and the number of people committed to individual action. She referenced the bravery of Irish, Berlin-based activist Kitty O’Brien, who was twice punched in the face by a German police officer in a video that recently went viral. O’Mahony also mentioned the Irish people, some of whom are friends of hers, joining the aid flotilla that is attempting to reach Gaza.
“Bonds are not an issue that most people ever knew anything about,” she said. “People have understood that and taken action. It’s really important that people take action where they’re at and where they can. Whether it’s in their own trade union or in their own community organisation.”
