Government's lack of a meaningful response to Israel's actions in Gaza 'shameful and disgraceful'

Francesca Albanese said 'the worst is yet to come' in Gaza. 

The Government's lack of a meaningful response to Israel's actions in Gaza has been described as "shameful and disgraceful".

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, told the Irish Examiner that countries cannot rely on supportive rhetoric alone. 

Ms Albanese, who was in Ireland speaking as a guest of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway, said: "Because Israel has violated the interim order of the International Court of Justice, it's appalling that meaningful measures have not been taken. 

There's this tendency to be very supportive with rhetoric, as Ireland has, but when it comes to taking concrete actions, there is zero. 

"Not a little. Zero. 

"The countries that have been most outspoken — like Ireland — what have they done in practice? Nothing. And this is shameful. It is disgraceful.” 

Heavy fighting continued around Gaza's main hospital in recent days, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will continue in its actions with or without US backing.

Ms Albanese is fearful of what is to come.

“In Gaza, the worst is yet to come. I trust every person who comes out of there. 

"They are traumatised to a point I've never seen. 

"Israelis, too, have been taken away by a collective madness. This is a society that is turning genocidal.” 

Of the complicity of the US and others supporting Israel's military actions, Albanese was damming.

“My fear as a scholar of forced displacement is that this pier they are building, a pier in a place that has no roads because they are all destroyed, will be the place that celebrates the forced displacement of the Palestinian people out of Gaza. This is pure depravity.”