Member's statement: Israel-Palestine War: Situation in Gaza

Member's statement by Ms Kate Nicholl on 13 February 2024.

MLA

Ms Kate Nicholl

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

13 February 2024

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Israel-Palestine War: Situation in Gaza

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4206140

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Mr Speaker, I did not get the opportunity yesterday to congratulate you on your elevation to Speaker, so I do so now. When I was a newly elected MLA, with a tiny baby in tow, you, along with my party colleagues, were especially kind to me. I know that you will do very well in the role. I also wish to speak about Palestine and what is happening in Gaza. As a South Belfast MLA, I do a lot of work with refugees and asylum seekers. I am helping two Palestinians whose family members are in Gaza. I watch how they are in despair at what is happening. We can acknowledge and recognise that the Hamas terrorist attack and its unspeakable cruelty on 7 October must be condemned. That is true, but we must also say that what is happening in Palestine now is unspeakable cruelty. As someone whose focus is on children and the next generation, I feel that the fact that more than 12,000 children have died is not a proportionate response. It is devastation. Every one of those children had a name, a family and a life, and they have gone. I keep thinking about Hind Rajab, who was six years old — not much older than my son — and the fear that she must have experienced. The silence around those lives is deafening. Their lives matter. Every single person matters; every person is important; every life matters. What is happening in Palestine is wrong. The least that we should say is that it is wrong and that the UK and the USA have to be unambiguous about the need for a ceasefire. Last year, during the Good Friday Agreement 25th anniversary celebrations, I met Palestinian and Israeli film-makers. They kept asking me specific questions about how we worked together, how we appointed Chairs and how our governance worked. The idea of working together was so far-fetched for them. I keep thinking about the people I met, who had come here with such hope before October, before the situation spiralled and their family members died, and before they were living in complete fear. I sent a message to one of the film-makers to say, "I want you to know that we are rooting for you". What else do you say? He came back to say that their imaginations are so filled with fear, hate and death that the only thing giving them hope is their time in Northern Ireland, and that their hope is to come back and spend time with the politicians here. All I can say is that we can honour that hope by making our politics work, but we have to be unambiguous on the need to speak out and say that what is happening is wrong.

464 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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