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THE LAST TIME I was in Gaza was 2004. I was a Fine Gael TD and made a low-key entry into the strip with colleagues Liz O’Donnell and Senator David Norris through the Erez crossing from Israel.
We spent two nights there and my lasting impressions were of a place challenged by significant overcrowding and tragic living conditions, a population locked in by security fences that prevented movement in and out, full of young people intensely frustrated at not being allowed to help themselves.
This week I entered Gaza as Ireland’s Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs in an armoured Jeep under UN escort.
The first difference hit me right at the border. Erez is no longer a secure checkpoint but a fortified border terminal. Since I was last in Gaza there have been three wars and in the most recent in 2014, 495 children died.
The strip is slightly smaller than County Louth but has nearly 2 million people living in it. It is one of the most densely populated places on earth and is barricaded by a large security wall.
On its sunny shoreline you can stare at the horizon across the blue Mediterranean, but Gaza’s 1,300 fishing boats are only allowed venture five nautical miles before they are turned back by warning shots.
‘Gaza is being crippled by blockades’
The strip has been crippled by the Israeli and Egyptian blockades and youth unemployment is over 65%. In Gaza 1.3 of the 1.9 million people now rely on food relief and Ireland is proud to stand with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in providing food, healthcare and education.
Nobody envisaged UNRWA’s work lasting 70-years but its thousands of workers are still in the region because of the failure to secure and guarantee a lasting peace.
Appeal to the US
UNRWAs funding is currently under threat, I committed €4 million of Irish money for 2018 this week, but have also appealed to the US administration directly not to reduce funding to this essential agency at such a sensitive time.
A major report has predicted Gaza will be unlivable by 2020. It was obvious to me on the ground this week that the situation is unsustainable and unacceptable. Gaza is about to implode under the strain of multiple socio-environmental challenges and we are running out of time to prevent it.
All this will most likely lead to a new cycle of violence and a repeat of past atrocities. Everyone I spoke to recognises the urgency of new actions in Gaza.
I spoke about Gaza with both the Israeli Prime-Minister and Palestinian President on Wednesday and have committed Ireland to funding and supporting new projects focused on improving quality of life and hope for the future.
On the need for a broader peace process, which ultimately is the only solution, I hope both leaders will lead their people into fresh peace talks leading to a long overdue two-state solution with Jerusalem as a shared capital. There are many sceptics, with good reason, but I do believe a fair negotiated peace agreement is possible.
Palestinian right to have their own State
Israel has legitimate security concerns that need to be addressed and Ireland recognises that. However Palestinians also have a legitimate ambition to have their own State which Ireland continues to support.
Hamas has controlled Gaza for more than a decade and is classed as a terrorist organisation by the EU. We do not deal directly with Hamas and condemn their violence.
However we support the renewed efforts for reconciliation of Palestinian factions as the people of Gaza have suffered badly from this internal division. One government structure for both the West Bank and Gaza is essential for the creation of a future functioning State.
While in Gaza I saw the pressures on food, water and electricity. I also saw reasons to be very hopeful.
The land is fertile, a natural gas find at sea could be harvested, a viable commercial port could allow the region to trade in the absence of a blockade, water desalination plants will turn seawater into drinking water and the EU is funding one to be constructed. Most of all Gaza’s youth are smart and well educated.
There’s an old Chinese proverb that has been adopted by the development community: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
One of the UN staff added to it in Gaza, “The people of Gaza don’t need your fish or to be taught how to fish, they are well educated with plenty of their own resources. What the people of Gaza need is access to the sea and the outside world and they’ll determine their own future”.
My 2004 visit was 14-years ago next week. The tensions, frustration and danger I saw then are at boiling point now. It is time for the international community to act to save Gaza, to give young people hope for the future, before despair and extremism fill that void – something ISIS and other extremist groups are only too eager to fill.
That is why I’ve traveled to the region twice in the last five months. Ireland will liaise with our EU partners and the European Commission in the coming weeks to show the people of Palestine and Gaza that they are not forgotten.
Simon Coveney is Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs
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I’ll just Google how to bake bread.
@David Dickson: Irishtimes have a good article
@David Dickson: I already did this and now Google how to make flour.
@cortisola: how to lay an egg
My baking soda is best before 12/1982.
Should be grand but this hatching is tiresome.
@David Dickson: What came first David Dickson or the Egg?
That is the question!!
Is there anything else happening in the world the journal can report on? Most of us are stuck at home bored and we know it’s cold, there’s no transport and people have been stock piling bread. Surely there’s a Trump/Hicks story or it’s the Russians what done it that could get an argument going
@Anne Marie Devlin: Watch a movie, I recommend “cold skin”, lots of similarly bad weather. Snow, wind, isolation with a bit of fantasy thrown in for good measure.
@Anne Marie Devlin: I anticipate this new article 9 months from now. “Ireland sees population boom as number of births increase.” Lol
We need metro underground – maybe it won’t be that easy to disrupt by our common natural disasters?
@cortisola: metro in Rome closed due to snow. They’re not impervious to the weather.
@cortisola: Common? How often does this happen?
@cortisola: For sure. That’s the justification to spend the excessive budget right there. A blizzard of magnitudes not seen since 1982.
@cortisola: The Phoenix Park tunnel wasn’t even open this morning, don’t have much hope for them maintaining a metro.
@Ala Alowska: knew you’d be too stupid to get it!
@Paddy Reid: Metro in Strabane still operating. Lifford bus stalled at the Camel’s Hump.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: I wont be surprised to hear Irish pubs in Sydney closed due to blizzard in Dublin…
@Paddy Reid: New York subway closes due to snow. Obviously not the underground portion but the majority of the network that’s overground does.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Snowstorm-Blizzard-Thursday-NYC-Tri-State-Mass-Transit-Subway-LIRR-Metro-North-NJ-Transit-NY-NJ-467921183.html
Anyway Metro is coming…….
@joe: I lived in New York for 2 years and that happened once when I was there and there was a hell of a lot more snow.
@Seamus McGillicuddy: It happened in January this year also as per that article. How do you know there was more snow. It hasn’t even come yet!
Luas,DART and trains running yesterday and this morning. They have stopped as a coordinated effort to keep people safe. I’m sure they could keep running if requested to.
They closed schools expecting 4-6 inches of snow. We are expecting 7.5- 15 inches!
And the taxis keep rolling untill every one is home safe, while the buses just jump ship. They should of kept going until 3:30 4. No buses in Galway all day.
@brendan H: taxi can be controlled a bit easier than a bus if it hits a dodgy patch of snow/ice. Also, less risk of injury in a taxi than a bus full of people… Use your head Brendan.
Eh my flight is getting to Dublin airport tomorrow at 2pm, it’s not cancelled or anything. So how will I get from the airport. Now this is quite interesting
@Krystian Brzezowski: not as interesting as if you try to walk.
@Krystian Brzezowski: roads at the moment are perfect in Dublin. If planes can’t get out of Dublin, don’t know how you’ll get in
Thank Chroissssst. Hopefully, that will keep Bono out for a day or two. I’d rather have a plague of locusts.
Dublin airport are all flights from 4pm.
Why did they cancel the morning flights.
Thank god for common sense of most airlines. However I was due to be in the airport tomorrow with 31 students for a school tour to Iceland. It took us until 3.30pm today to convince wow air that there was even an issue in Dublin airport. Then they told us our flight would still depart at 10.45 am Friday and we’d find out 2 hours before if it was cancelled. Our bus driver said he wouldn’t bring us to the airport due to the warning (which is fair enough). We have finally gave out enough (teachers parents and travel company) that they may now be willing to reschedule our flight. But this has been on going since midday today. I would warn anybody flying with wow air of their poor customer support. My colleague was left on hold for over 30 minutes on numerous occasions since last night.
If we ever have a crisis ..were doomed.. snow and the hole place comes to a stop..
So, we are going to fit a day and a half into a single afternoon. You have to tell me how it’s done.
@Ben Gunn: Put your head between your legs and follow your nose, Ben.
Lots of Flights from Dublin cancelled today, weather ok so far.
@Benjamin Dolan: It’s closed from 4pm in anticipation of zero visibility and poor weather. Snow clearing and de-icing takes time so airport can’t operate at full capacity. They could run all flights with delays but that would lead to flights later in the day being cancelled. I assume they cancel flights to cities with multiple flights a day and hope that free space on later flights can take up the slack.
Also fligths to busier airports have tight windows that they have their slot for. If they miss this they may not be able to land at their destination.
Anyway all that to say that the cancellations this morning were probably more likely as a result of delays and missing time slots than planes not actually being able to leave.
@joe:
Ok Joe that make sense thanks for your reply
It better be bad LEO, you’ve closed the country down. Teachers closed schools
And teachers closed the country as well.
God help Ireland if it ever has an emergency.
IRELAND led by a wimp.
Why do you keep saying the “entire “ county? Please make an effort and check Met Eireann
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