Debate contribution: Gaza: Action to End Forced Starvation
Debate contribution by Mr Declan Kearney on .
- MLA
- Mr Declan Kearney
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 9 September 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Gaza: Action to End Forced Starvation
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5086425
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I beg to move
"Leave now or face obliteration". That was the message that was received this morning by children in Gaza who picked up leaflets that were dropped by the Israeli military. As of August 2025, a catastrophic famine in Gaza has been confirmed. The situation in Gaza is beyond apocalyptic. The horror is absolutely unimaginable. Four hundred Palestinians have died from starvation, including 135 Gazan children. One in three children is acutely malnourished. Starvation is being used as a weapon of war. One child is killed every hour, and Gaza is now the most dangerous place on the planet for children to live. A deliberate, man-made famine is being inflicted on a defenceless population, who are being murdered systematically as they search for food. Since the launch of the US-funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in May 2025, over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed at so-called humanitarian aid distribution sites. In reality, they are nothing more than deathtraps. The United Nations also warns that enforced disappearances of starving civilians, including children, have been reported at those sites. Israel's vicious and brutal onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank has resulted in the death of over 64,000 Palestinians, 20,000 of whom are now recorded as being children. The actual death toll is much higher, because what is not known is the number of bodies that lie lifeless beneath the rubble. There are no safe places in Gaza, despite the Israeli black propaganda. Israel's indiscriminate warmongering has resulted in the murder of journalists and healthcare, civil defence and humanitarian aid workers. The United Nations has asserted that over two million people are being trapped, bombed and starved. Israel's murderous intent for the region cannot go unchallenged. This Israeli regime is now applying a systematic, scorched-earth strategy in Gaza. Rafah, which was the second-largest city on the strip, no longer exists. It has been turned into rubble. Currently, every high-rise building remaining in Gaza City is being destroyed daily. A ruthless holocaust is being inflicted on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. The launch of the Global Sumud flotilla is a powerful demonstration by people from all over the world to demand the end to this genocide. Currently, the freedom flotilla has 50 boats from 44 countries spanning six continents, and it is the largest humanitarian fleet in history. Yet, in another outrage this morning, the flotilla has been bombed with a drone. Last weekend, the Global Day of Action for Gaza mobilised millions around the world, and tens of thousands of people marched in our cities, towns and villages across Ireland and elsewhere in solidarity with the Palestinian people, calling for the US and British Governments to end their complicity, to stop the slaughter and to support a ceasefire. So in some respects, the tide of world opinion is beginning to turn.
Ordinary people all over the world understand what they are seeing daily in their media: a desperate people being deliberately starved, displaced and murdered in a sustained genocide.
Israel stands in defiance of international law and the multilateral order. It is in violation of the Geneva conventions, the Rome statute, the genocide convention and the UN charter. It is in breach of the international obligations that an occupying power must observe. The Israelis and those who support them are destroying every diplomatic and humanitarian norm that has guided the world over the past eight decades. In violation of the UN headquarters agreement obligation, the US itself, in another disgraceful act of complicity, has refused to grant entry visas for the Palestinian delegation to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York today. That US-Israeli censorship will only bring greater focus on the queue of countries that are now assembling at the UNGA to recognise the state of Palestine. That UNGA will mark 23 months of sustained genocidal war against the Palestinian people, and we must hope that those gathered at the Assembly will call for action under the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, empowering the General Assembly to circumvent the ongoing obstruction that has been taking place at the Security Council with the misuse — the egregious misuse — of vetoes. The most powerful in the international community can no longer ignore or stay silent in the face of Israel's war crimes. Their prevarication and conditionality are now morally and politically bankrupt. Israel is a terrorist state. Its latest terrorist act was demonstrated no earlier than today when it bombed the Hamas negotiation team in Doha, Qatar, while it was reviewing the proposals and ideas that it was supplied with, via the Qataris, by the United States. What happened? The very people who were looking at the proposals and ideas for progressing a ceasefire were bombed by the terrorists. Comprehensive and robust actions must be taken to end the genocide and hold Israel to account for its crimes against humanity in the Palestinian territories. There must be an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Israel must lift the illegal blockade on humanitarian aid into the Strip. Israel must be held accountable for its war crimes and its state terrorism. Netanyahu and Gallant must be brought before the International Criminal Court. The world, particularly the Global North, must finally recognise the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood.
878 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.15 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.57).
- Subject area: Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.36 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.15 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.18 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.11 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.35 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.15 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.57 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.12 |
| Adopts it | 0.31 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.45 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.36 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.12 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.03 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.02 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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