More than 1,000 people have marched on the US Consulate in Belfast for an Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) co-organised rally calling for an “end to US-Israel genocide of Palestinian children”.
The demonstration, which assembled at Queen’s University, Belfast, took place on Saturday afternoon, a week before the first anniversary of the October 7 attack, and the start of current Israel-Hamas conflict.
Addressing the crowd Nobel Laureate Mariead Maguire said she could not find the words to describe how “horrific” was the current situation in Gaza and Lebanon.
“This is a horror worse than Auschwitz,” said Ms Maguire.
“We said ‘no’ to the killing of our Jewish brothers and sisters. Are we not bound by our conscience to stand up now against the murder of people in Gaza, little children only born?” she added.
“We learned this morning that the Israelis have had a ‘victory’.
“What sort of ‘victory’ is there in killing people who are trying to defend their own people? People who have been prepared to give their own lives to say ‘no’ to evil and killing little children, denying them food and medicine and infrastructure.
“What ‘victory’ is this you claim when you send bombs on buildings and destroy the infrastructure of the Lebanese people now? They are the ones to face the horror of Gaza.
“We deny Israel your right to kill. We deny Israel your right to stand up in the Congress and the Senate, our alleged leadership, and claim a victory on the murder of over 40,000 Gazan people.
“That is not ‘victory’. This is a horror worse than Auschwitz,” said Ms Maguire.
Demonstrators carried schoolbags and white flowers, which were laid at the gate of the Consulate in memory of the estimated 16,000 Palestinian children killed in the violence and the “600,000 without education again this year”.
Patricia McKeown, Chair of the Trades Union Friends of Palestine said the US was “a sponsor, a partner, the main strategist for what is happening in the Middle East”.
She added: “We woke up this morning to hear a war criminal, a mass murderer, was headlining in the Israeli press as ‘Mr Security’.
“Because he [Benjamin Netanyahu] can’t win a war against the Palestinians of Gaza and he can’t win a war against the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, he has turned his attention to Lebanon.
“If governments won’t stand up, then voices like ours must,” said Ms McKeown.
Majida Al Askari, from Gaza, told the rally she was proud to be in Belfast as “a voice for the people who have no voice”.
“I am here to give you a message from the kids, the women, the men, from everyone in Gaza, to tell you, we are not only the survivors of genocide, we are the builders of our future.”
Genocide survivor Zak Hania spoke about his grandparents and parents and their experiences of previous Israeli massacres in Palestine.
“For me, as a human being, I cannot comprehend or understand the level of evil they can reach in doing all these massacres and killing all these people and the children [today],” he said.
“Even now, I cannot understand how a group of people can do this to other human beings – all these massacres.”
Derry and Strabane councillor Shaun Harkin also present said Irish elites had “refused to challenge Israel’s war crimes because they benefit from Ireland’s tax haven status for massive US corporations”.
“Despite the tremendous solidarity over the last year in Ireland, the Government has refused to expel the Israeli ambassador and refused to close Irish airspace and Shannon Airport for US military flights taking munitions to slaughter children in Gaza.”
