 Brian Kerr launches ‘Gaza Kids to Ireland’ Gaza Action Ireland launched its Gaza Kids to Ireland project today in Dublin, with the support of Brian Kerr, former Irish national team manager, who spoke very eloquently and passionately on the terrible and illegal obstacles apartheid Israel imposes on Palestinian football players both in Gaza and the West Bank. These include preventing the team from playing and training together, imprisoning players and coaches and have also seen players being shot, coupled with the bombing of the stadium in Gaza. In this light Kerr noted that the achievement of sports people in Palestine to continue to try to play and to compete successfully is remarkable. He also remembered the four children from the Bakr family who were murdered as they played football on the beach in Gaza this summer in Israel’s murderous assault which killed more than 2,200 people. Press release from GAI below, article from the Journal here. ‘7-year olds in Gaza have suffered three wars and yet they’re still trying to play football.’ Interview with Trevor Hogan on the Tubridy Show, from 49 mins. Irish Independent piece: Gaza’s young footballers gear up for visit to Ireland Many thanks to everyone who came along and have been helping out with this project, particularly to the chair and vice-chair of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Martin Quigley and Fatin Al Tamimi. Also to Peter Houlihan for the photos. We will keep people notified on how to get involved with this project, meanwhile if you would like to donate, please see the Gaza Action Ireland website. Photo Peter Houlihan PH Photography Brian Kerr launches ‘Gaza Kids to Ireland’ A TEAM of Palestinian children from the besieged Gaza strip will play football in Ireland next summer, thanks to an initiative launched today by former Irish manager and leading football pundit Brian Kerr. Hundreds of children were killed and approximately 3,000 were injured in Israel’s summer onslaught on the territory. “We’d love to do something to help all of Gaza’s kids to have a normal childhood,” Kerr said at the launch in Buswell’s Hotel, Dublin, today. “In the meantime we can show this small group of them our hospitality – and the special sort of solidarity that comes from competing on a football pitch.” Under-14 members of the Al-Helal club, based in northern Gaza, will play against teams from Dublin, Tipperary, Limerick and Antrim during their visit next August. The ‘Gaza Kids to Ireland’ trip will see the children make a daunting journey across Egypt’s Sinai Desert, because the simpler route through Israel is closed by the illegal siege, and because Gaza doesn’t have an airport. It is being organised by Gaza Action Ireland (GAI) and Antrim to Gaza, who need to raise thousands of euro to support the initiative. Contributions can be made at www.gazaactionireland.ie. “Most people in Ireland were sickened at the sight of what Gaza’s men, women and children suffered under Israeli bombardment in July and August,” ex-rugby international Trevor Hogan, one of the GAI organisers of the visit, said today. “But the maiming and murder of so many kids was especially heartbreaking. “We’ve expressed our anger already, not only at last summer’s assault but at the ongoing siege of this small, densely populated territory,” Hogan added. “This trip offers us a different way to show our support for the children of Palestine.” Al-Helal’s clubhouse was damaged in the Israeli assaults of 2012 and 2014. It stands close to the beach, but the sea there is usually too polluted with sewage for the children to play in it. “Even in Ireland, playing football is often the main form of exercise and entertainment that is freely available to children,” Kerr, who is also a director of Sport Against Racism Ireland (SARI), said. “Imagine what it must mean to Gaza’s kids, who have just lived through the third major attack in less than six years on the territory where they live.” GAI coordinator Zoë Lawlor said the organisers were delighted to have the support of many Irish sportspeople.  Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 11am
Buswell’s Hotel, Molesworth Street, Dublin A TEAM of Palestinian children will play football in Ireland next summer, thanks to an initiative to be launched next Wednesday by former Irish manager and leading football pundit Brian Kerr. Ex-rugby international Trevor Hogan, one of the organisers of the visit, will also speak at the launch. Under-14 members of the Al-Helal club, based in northern Gaza, will play against teams from Dublin, Tipperary, Limerick and Belfast during their visit next August. The trip – which will see the children make a daunting journey across Egypt’s Sinai Desert, because the simpler route through Israel is closed by the siege – is being organised by Gaza Action Ireland and Antrim to Gaza, who need to raise thousands of euro to support the initiative. Al-Helal’s clubhouse was damaged in the Israeli assaults of 2012 and 2014. With the nearby sea polluted by sewage, football is often the only exercise and entertainment available to Gaza’s children, who have just lived through the third major attack in less than six years on the territory where they live. The organisers are pleased to have the support of many Irish sportspeople, including Kerr, who also serves as a director of SARI (Sport Against Racism Ireland). Contact: Trevor Hogan, 087 960 2304; Zoe Lawlor, 087 950 4397 Photographs of children from Al-Helal and of their Gaza facilities will be available on the day.  ‘WINDOWS INTO GAZA’
The launch for the Limerick “leg” of the ‘Windows Into Gaza’ exhibition took place on Thursday, 2nd October at 6pm at 69, O’Connell St. ‘Windows Into Gaza’ is an exhibition organised by Gaza Action Ireland and curated by Felim Egan. The exhibition will be open and run in Limerick until the 17th of October. The event was officially opened by artist Sean Taylor and Zoe Lawlor of Gaza Action Ireland.‘Windows Into Gaza’ first arrived in Ireland in April where the opening in Dublin was attended by a number of notable names including the Palestinian Ambassador, the artist Guggi and actor Stephen Rea. The exhibition by 11 Palestinian artists based in Gaza illustrates the best of painting and photography from the besieged enclave. A side of Gaza, Palestine not commonly known, the side of a people with a deep cultural heritage, full of innovation, hope and peace. ’This is also Gaza’. The exhibition includes photographs from the children’s workshops run voluntarily by the artists.The exhibition will tour Ireland, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Limerick & Cork before returning to Dublin in October.The exhibition will be accompanied by a full colour bi-lingual catalogue.A special edition of Giclee prints, by several of the artists, on Hahnemhule paper will be available for sale.A limited signed edition print ‘Saoirse’ by Felim Egan will also be for sale.Proceeds go towards the costs of the exhibition and any profits will be donated to the Children’s Art Workshop in Gaza.Claudia Saba, an Arabic-speaking member of Gaza Action Ireland met one of the artists, Raed Issa in Gaza last year. Raed whose home was bombed by Israel in the attack on Gaza spoke to Claudia on the phone as he picked through the rubble trying to retrieve his life and work. She relayed the following account: ‘He said he was back in the rubble trying to salvage whatever useful things he could find and that he wanted to do it now because at night “it’s a little more scary”. As I was speaking to him I heard a large explosion. He said that was an airstrike approximately a kilometre away.
Minister Flanagan criticised as protesters ‘besiege’ Israeli embassy in Dublin More than 150 protesters gathered outside the Israeli embassy in Dublin between 1pm and 2pm today to demand that the Irish government take action against the Israeli state. The colourful vigil, organised by Gaza Action Ireland, took the form of a peaceful symbolic ‘siege’ of the embassy with protesters ringing the perimeter and calling for the immediate expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland. Speaking to the crowd, ex-rugby international and Gaza Action Ireland (GAI) member Trevor Hogan forcefully criticised the inaction of Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan. “In July 2011 Charlie Flanagan publicly demanded the expulsion of the Papal Nuncio following the horrific revelations in the Cloyne Report, but he seems unwilling to take action now against the Israeli ambassador despite the appalling atrocities carried out in Gaza. We have to ask why? UN schools and refugee centres have been attacked and hundreds of children killed. The blockade of Gaza is itself illegal under international law. If it was right to expel the Papal Nuncio in 2011, it is surely right to expel the Israeli ambassador now. Enough is enough. Ambassador Modai is an apologist and propagandist for war criminals”, he said. For Minister Flanagan’s call to expel the Papal Nuncio, click here: 
Mr Hogan continued: “Minister Flanagan needs to be more robust in his interaction with the Israeli government because so far he has failed utterly to reflect the sentiment of most Irish people which is sheer horror at what is happening to Gaza. The Israeli government wants to enforce a slow death on the people of Gaza with its illegal siege, suffocating every aspect of life. The right to a seaport, to an airport, to an economy, to a livelihood, these are not negotiating issues – they are obligations that must be met. Israeli governments have grown used to committing crimes – they can no longer be allowed to act with such impunity. The Irish government must argue within the EU for strong sanctions against Israel.”
Notice from Gaza Action Ireland, for immediate release
Event: Symbolic ‘siege’ of Israeli embassy, vigil for Gaza Time: Thursday, August 21, 2014, 1pm to 2pm Location: Israeli embassy, 122 Pembroke Road, Dublin A vigil, organised by Gaza Action Ireland (GAI), to call for the immediate expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and to remember those murdered in Gaza in recent weeks will be held at the Israeli embassy in Dublin this Thursday at lunchtime. The most recent figures issued by the Health Ministry in Gaza indicate that the death toll from Israel’s assault over the past few weeks has risen to 2,016, including 541 children. Gaza Action Ireland believes that the EU and the Irish government must take action to isolate Israel in the wake of this massacre to ensure that it is never repeated. We are also calling for an immediate end to all aspects of the Israeli blockade. The gathering on Thursday, called by Gaza Action Ireland (GAI), comes after ex-rugby international and GAI member Trevor Hogan passionately called on protesters at a recent national demonstration to symbolically besiege the embassy. “Hundreds of children have been murdered in Gaza in the past few weeks and it cannot be business as usual with a government that behaves in this way. The Irish government would be sending a strong message to Israel that the blockade of Gaza is unacceptable if it took decisive action and expelled its ambassador to Dublin – the minister must act,” Hogan, who will attend the vigil, said today. He added: “Minister Flanagan has stated that he will only expel an ambassador in exceptional circumstances but the crippling blockade of Gaza and the massacre of thousands of civilians are surely exceptional circumstances. If they are not, what are?” This hour-long symbolic siege will call for an end to the Israeli war on the civilians of Gaza and for a permanent lifting of the siege on that territory. Up to 300 protesters formed a symbolic siege around Dublin’s Israeli embassy today, calling for the immediate expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and remembering those murdered in Gaza in recent weeks. “This embassy has been the source of a string of shameful lies,” Gaza Action Ireland (GAI) member and ex-rugby international Trevor Hogan told the crowd. “Lies about Palestine, lies about the siege of Gaza, and lies about Irish activists. “While Israel maintains its violent, murderous siege on Gaza, we should keep coming back for peaceful, symbolic ones here, until the ambassador is told to pack his bags and leave Ireland,” Hogan added. This hour-long event, organised by GAI, saw protesters spread out around the perimeter of the south Dublin office block that houses the embassy. Fatin Al-Tamimi, who has many relatives suffering under the siege and assault in Gaza, walked along the line reading the names of the dead. “Ambassador Modai and his team are apologists and spokespersons for war criminals, for a regime that in the past five weeks has murdered nearly 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza including hundreds of children,” GAI coordinator Mags O’Brien said. The colourful vigil also included readings of poetry from Gaza and was addressed by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett.  Video of the Event, including interview with Trevor Hogan, GAI Notice from Gaza Action Ireland – Event: Symbolic ‘siege’ of Israeli embassy, vigil for Gaza Time: Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 1pm to 2pm Location: Israeli embassy, 122 Pembroke Road, Dublin A vigil to call for the immediate expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and to remember those murdered in Gaza in recent weeks will be held at the Israeli embassy in Dublin on Wednesday at lunchtime. The gathering, called by Gaza Action Ireland (GAI), comes after ex-rugby international and GAI member Trevor Hogan passionately called on protesters at a national demonstration last Saturday to symbolically besiege the embassy. 
“We should not allow diplomatic status to be accorded to the representatives of a terror state,” Hogan, who will attend the vigil, said today.
This hour-long symbolic siege will call for an end to the Israeli war on the civilians of Gaza and for a lifting of the siege on that territory. “Ambassador Modai and his team are apologists and spokespersons for war criminals, for a regime that in the past month has murdered nearly 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza including hundreds of children,” GAI coordinator Mags O’Brien said. “They have Gaza under siege – let us put them under siege until the Israeli ambassador is told to pack his bags and leave Ireland,” Hogan added. The colourful vigil, which will include readings of poetry from Gaza and silent remembering of the dead, will assemble at 1pm outside the Israeli embassy at 122 Pembroke Road, Dublin. Thursday, July 31, 2014 from Gaza Action Ireland Gaza protesters march through Grafton Street HUNDREDS of protesters, chanting “Boycott Israel”, noisily marched the length of Dublin’s Grafton Street this evening [[THURS]] on their way to a ‘die-in’ at Leinster House to oppose the Irish Government’s inaction over Gaza. Up to 500 people had earlier heard speeches from doctors and members of the Palestinian community outside the Department of Foreign Affairs on St Stephen’s Green. The doctors called on the Irish Government to take a firm stand against Israeli attacks on medical workers, hospitals and ambulances in Gaza. 
Israel’s increasingly savage assault on Gaza has seen 1,400 people killed in just over three weeks, with many thousands wounded and close to 200,000 displaced. The UN reports that its relief operations are close to breaking point, and Israel has repeatedly targeted schools that were being used as shelter for people with nowhere else to hide.
At Leinster House there were further speeches and hundreds of protesters lay down as if dead, holding sheets of people bearing the names of those killed in Gaza, while part of a list of the victims was read aloud. Nyssan Deeb, a Palestinian who lives in Dublin, said the daily litany of horrors from Gaza was heartbreaking. “I look at the pictures of children and I see my own child,” she said. 
Medics lament Irish abstention on Gaza
DOCTORS, paramedics, nurses and other medical personnel have called for the Irish Government to take a firm stand against Israeli attacks on medical workers, hospitals and ambulances in Gaza. The protesters, many dressed in scrubs and other clothes of their professions, gathered outside Dáil Eireann with a large crowd of other supporters today [[THURS]] at lunchtime. Some speakers expressed disappointment at Ireland’s abstention in the UN Human Rights Council vote on investigating Israeli war crimes. During the latest onslaught, thus far one doctor and two paramedics have been killed, more than 30 first-responders wounded and two hospitals bombed. A Red Crescent emergency-services unit and numerous clinics and ambulances have been shelled or damaged. “In my professional opinion, the ongoing attacks on medics in Gaza clearly constitute a war crime that cannot be justified and warrant immediate referral to the ICC,” Prof Damian McCormack, a surgeon at the Mater hospital, said. “I call on our government to demand an apology from the Israeli ambassador or to expel him. “Further I call on all medical bodies and colleagues in Ireland to publicly condemn these attacks and not to repeat their shameful silence over attacks on medical personnel in Bahrain in 2011,” McCormack said. The protest was called by Gaza Action Ireland (GAI) and supported by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Sadaka. “It’s an absolute shame and disgrace that Ireland abstained yesterday on a mere call for an investigation into possible war crimes,” GAI coordinator Mags O’Brien said. From Gaza Action Ireland
Irish group condemns Gaza school attack, Govt inaction TODAY’S brutal attack on a UN school in Gaza underlines the stupidity and cowardice of Irish and EU policy toward Israel, Gaza Action Ireland (GAI) said. At least 15 people were killed, with many more injured and the death count likely to grow. The hospitals in Gaza, already under dire pressure due to the illegal siege, are now in an overwhelming, Israeli-made crisis, running on generators, with zero stock of many vital medicines and a medical community that is under constant military assault trying to deal with mass injuries and fatalities. “Hospitals, schools, mosques, homes, the entire infrastructure of Gaza is being targeted and the people there are being terrorised and traumatised by the world’s fourth largest military,” Zoe Lawlor, GAI coordinator, said. Today at the Dáil, GAI organised a protest by doctors, nurses and paramedics against Israel’s targeting of hospitals, clinics, ambulances and medical personnel. “It could hardly be made any clearer than Israel is deliberately targeting civilians,” Lawlor added. “The attack, and their initial lies about this savage massacre, have brought home to the world their basic indifference to Palestinian suffering, something that has been evident throughout the last eight years of violence and siege.” “The sickening irony is that this atrocity comes so soon after Ireland abstained on the UN Human Rights Council motion to investigate Israeli war crimes,” GAI coordinator Mags O’Brien said. “It is a disgrace that Ireland was dragged into an EU language of ‘balance’ that is just a front for shameful capitulation to Israeli and American intransigence.” Lawlor said: “This latest attack on a UN school shows Israel’s utter contempt for the international community and of course for the people of Gaza. People who had already been made homeless by 17 days and nights of relentless Israeli bombardment, taking shelter in what they thought was a safe place, were bombed. This is a crime against humanity and Israel must face sanctions for its war crimes against the Palestinian people. “The thousands of people all over Ireland that have taken part in actions and marches in solidarity with the Palestinian people shows clearly that the Irish Government is blatantly acting against the wishes of the Irish people by its shameful abstention on the UN vote yesterday. The level of outrage at this here is palpable.”  A PAINTER whose work features in the Windows Into Gaza exhibition, currently in the Galway Arts Festival as part of its Irish tour, has seen his home destroyed in an Israeli bombing raid.
The attached photo shows Raed Issa standing beside part of the apartment block that was previously his home, and that of eight other households. Claudia Saba, an Arabic-speaking member of Gaza Action Ireland who met Raed in Gaza last year, got him on the phone today as he picked through the rubble trying to retrieve his life and work. She relayed the following account: ‘He said he was back in the rubble trying to salvage whatever useful things he could find and that he wanted to do it now because at night “it’s a little more scary”. As I was speaking to him I heard a large explosion. He said that was an airstrike approximately a kilometre away. ‘No one in his family was hurt – they all evacuated beforehand. I asked him if they had received a “warning”. He said they’d received no phone call – but that the Israelis had called their neighbours and told them to evacuate “because the house next to theirs was about to be bombed”. So the neighbours informed Raed’s family and they quickly evacuated too. A few minutes later there was a “knock on the roof” rocket. Meanwhile a relative called them and said he’d been told (through another phone call I think) that Raed’s family should evacuate the women and children but not tell the men and let them die in the blast. ‘Shortly after the “knock on the roof” a major airstrike came and the building was destroyed.’ Issa’s powerful paintings were among those gathered by Irish artist Felim Egan for the Windows Into Gaza exhibition, which received extensive coverage in the national media when it opened in Dublin earlier this year. Gaza Action Ireland coordinator Zoe Lawlor said: ‘It is horrible to think that there is nothing unusual about Raed’s story. It has been repeated hundreds of times across the tiny strip in recent days, as part of the savage collective punishment of the mostly refugee population in Gaza. ‘Still, because we know Raed and have enjoyed his beautiful work, it brings home the horror and the cynicism of the sadistic Israeli campaign in Gaza. International pressure must force Israel to end it immediately.’ The Windows Into Gaza exhibition is currently showing in the Galway City Museum at Spanish Parade as part of Galway International Arts Festival, until 27th July. It will be in Limerick, the Belltable Arts Centre from 29th September, for four weeks, as part of the Limerick City of Culture. Galway piece ANY RELIEF for the people of Gaza is welcome, but Israel should never have been allowed to have a ‘free week’ to add to its destruction of lives and property there, says an Irish group with extensive contacts in the Palestinian territory.
Gaza Action Ireland (GAI) said that despite today’s talks of a ceasefire, Israel must answer for deliberately killing civilians and targeting vital water and sewage infrastructure in Gaza — and for the impunity with which it is prepared to resume the savage assault. One week after the start of the bombing campaign launched by Israel last Tuesday, more than 180 people, including at least 34 children, have been killed in the small coastal strip. Entire families have been obliterated in the massacre. According to Zoe Lawlor, co-ordinator of GAI, “It’s an absolute outrage that this slaughter has happened, and has been allowed to continue by the western countries that provide vital aid and support to Israel. We’ve seen a repetition of the bloody tradition by which Israel gets at least one week of free bombing before there are any serious efforts by international actors to stop the collective punishment of a refugee population. “Hundreds of people have been injured, made homeless and severely traumatised by this latest Israeli onslaught, which is completely illegal as well as utterly reprehensible,” Lawlor added. “As human-rights monitors including the respected Palestinian Centre for Human Rights have pointed out, multiple war crimes are being committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza.” GAI called on the new minister for foreign affairs, Charles Flanagan TD, to take steps to express the Irish people’s anger at the assault, including the removal of the preferential trading status that Israel enjoys with the European Union. “There were thousands of people out protesting all over Ireland on Saturday, yet our Government’s silence is deafening,” Mags O’Brien of GAI said. “As on previous occasions in 2008, 2009 and 2012, there is evidence that Israel has deliberately destroyed civilian targets in Gaza, from family homes to sewage plants, and even treating Gaza’s civilian police force as a target ‘combatant’,” O’Brien added. “The notion of Israel encouraging people to evacuate their homes is farcical, when you consider that it has turned Gaza into a prison, where there is no place to hide and no way to escape.” O’Brien, Lawlor and other members of GAI visited Gaza last year, not long after the destruction from ‘Operation Pillar of Defence’ in November 2012. When they visited it was possible to get through the border crossing with Egypt at Rafah, but the Egyptian closures of both the official crossing and the tunnels that were Gaza’s lifelines have made existence there even more difficult. “The latest campaign is just an intensification of the constant terror, violence and economic de-development that is created by the illegal siege of Gaza and indeed the broader occupation of Palestine,” Lawlor said. “That’s why it’s so important that we answer the call from Palestinian civil society to support boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and its institutions.” A statement from the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights this week said: “”What is our demand? It is not extravagant, or unreasonable. We want to be treated as equals. We want our rights respected, and protected. We ask that international law be applied, equally, to Israel and Palestine, to Israelis and Palestinians. The rule of international law must be respected, and all those responsible for its violations must be held to account….. We call too on the international community, on civil society, to add your voices to ours in our quest for rights and justice. Without this, we are all lost.” This echoes a call from Gaza civil-society groups for: an arms embargo on Israel; sanctions that would cut off the supply of weapons and military aid from Europe and the United States on which Israel depends to commit such war crimes; suspension of all free trade and bilateral agreements with Israel such as the EU-Israel Association agreement; boycott, divestment and sanctions, ascalled for by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society in 2005. Lawlor said GAI endorses and supports these calls from Gaza, and urged the Irish Government to heed them. ISRAEL’S attacks on Gaza must stop, and international pressure must be put on both the Israeli and Egyptian governments to lift the siege on the Palestinian territory, a group of Irish-based activists said today.
Gaza Action Ireland (GAI), which has close links with human-rights campaigners inside Gaza, said there could be no justification for the bombing that has killed more than 30 people in the territory in the last few days. Eight children are reported dead, including six killed by a single attack on the home of the Kaware family in the southern-Gaza city of Khan Younis. “Journalists and others need to understand that when they call these savage bombings an ‘Israeli response’ to Hamas rockets, or suggest some equivalence between the suffering of the two sides, they are playing into the PR strategy of the aggressor, the occupying power, the Israeli state,” Zoe Lawlor, a spokesperson for GAI, said. Ms Lawlor said the current wave of attacks was started by Israel. “It’s simply another example of Israel carrying out collective punishment of the people of Gaza, contrary to all morality and international law,” she said. “On this occasion, the pretext was the deplorable murder of three young Israelis — but Israel has produced no evidence that Hamas was responsible, and indeed embarked on weeks of arrests, home raids and demolitions throughout the West Bank, again described by Amnesty International as collective punishment.” GAI’s Mags O’Brien, a trade-union activist with contacts among emergency-service workers in Gaza, said hospitals there were already stretched beyond their capacity. “Gaza suffers from a shortage of medicine and supplies, because of Israeli restrictions and the Egyptian government’s closure of the tunnels that have been such a vital supply line,” Ms O’Brien said. “They’re struggling to cope with the casualties of this latest assault.” Ms Lawlor, Ms O’Brien and other GAI members visited Gaza last year, not long after Israel’s ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud’ killed more than 150 people. Ms Lawlor said: “We need Irish politicians, and others, to stand with the people of Palestine. This latest attack is just an escalation of the state of terror that is Israel’s standard operating procedure against the besieged people of Gaza. We also need civil society to support the Palestinian call for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) on Israel.” Solidarity with Palestine events this weekend Dublin Limerick Cork |
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