Protestors in Belfast marked “a calendar year of genocide in Gaza” by staging a vigil outside City Hall.
Endorsed by several campaign groups, dozens attended the event with the message: “A calendar year of genocide in Gaza, let’s not see another.”
With the crowd holding up a huge Palestinian flag and candles, there were chants of “we are all Palestinians” and “Israel is a terrorist state.”
Among the speakers included a nurse from Belfast, Cathy, who is also a member of the Mothers Against Genocide group.
She spoke of her friendship with another mother in Gaza, contrasting life for their children.
— Allan Preston (@AllanPreston) December 31, 2024
Both singing their children lullabies at night, she said the difference in Gaza was that mothers did it to drown out the noise of constant shelling.
“While she wishes them sweet dreams at night, unfortunately the reality is that her children have become so accustomed the sound of the daily war planes that even in their deepest sleep they have learned to place their hands over their ears,” she said.
She also describes how the family were displaced over ten times, now facing the winter in a leaky tent at a refugee camp.
“I ask you...do these children not have the basic rights to a warm, dry shelter during the winter months?”
An estimated 45,000 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces in retaliation since the October 7 Hamas attack of 2023, where 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and around 250 taken hostage.
Around 100 are still being held in Gaza, with a third of them believed to have died already.
New Year’s vigils for Gaza were also held at the Peace Bridge in Derry, Newry, Dublin and several other locations across Ireland.
The Gaels against Gaza group had also recently staged a silent vigil outside Belfast City Hall on Christmas Day, days after a ‘Christmas Chanukah for Palestine’ march through the city centre.
