Patricia OSullivan

Love the outdoors, be it at Barleycove, up on Knocknaphuca, on the bog, cycling along the Grand Canal ...'Let’s just go as far as the next bend...'

[Patricia OSullivan @Goleen2]

⁦@CarlowWeather⁩ Tullamore Co. Offaly.

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

I came back today. I thought I had known despair before, but what I saw today is beyond despair.
It is not grief, nor horror, nor pain. It is something colder, a stillness where even God seems to have withdrawn His hand.

The sky was impossibly blue. The kind of blue that mocks you, that makes you wonder whether beauty itself is a crime.
I walked through streets that no longer exist, streets that were my childhood.
They are now a wilderness of stone, wire, and dust.

A man stood on a heap, a neighbor, I think.
He pointed and said, “It’s here.”
I asked him how far.
He looked down.
And I understood: my house was beneath his feet.

I lifted my phone, as if the machine could recognize what I could not. The screen glowed; there was nothing to see. The earth had swallowed the distances. Even the smell of home was gone. It was as if the thread connecting me to life itself had been cut.

I dug with my hands. The dust burned. My palms bled.
My mother had told me: “Search for anything we can save.” And so I obeyed her like a son obeys the last voice that still believes there is meaning in obedience.

From a house that once cost my father one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, a lifetime of labor, of hope, of decency, I found two things:
a knife, and a pillow.

Two relics of civilization. One for necessity, one for illusion.
That is what remains of man.

I sat in the ruins, the blue of my shirt turned gray with ash, and I thought:
this is the end not of a city, but of meaning itself.

I thought of my parents, their hands, their faith in honest work.
How will they bear this? How will any man bear seeing his father’s roof turned into dust by a stranger’s hands, hands that will never know the names of those they destroyed?

But what tears me apart more than ruin is silence. No one speaks to us.
No one tells us where to go, who will rebuild, or who is responsible.
The politicians talk of victories, the generals of strategy, the world of peace and progress.
But none of them live here among the ashes. None of them stand where I stand, sifting through their own dead.

And those who claim to represent us, where are they? Where is the money they collected in our name, the promises they made before the cameras, the slogans they wrote while we buried our children?
Who among them will come to this ruin and say: Forgive us, we failed you?
Not one.

They sit in offices with clean shirts, counting our corpses as figures on paper. They say “reconstruction,” “aid,” “negotiations,” as though the vocabulary of power could fill the emptiness of a mother’s bed.

I tell you the truth: there is no crime greater than indifference.
The murderer at least acknowledges the victim.
But those who look away, they kill the soul itself.

I brushed the dust from my shirt, though I knew it was useless.
I wanted to see if there was still color left in the world.
There wasn’t.
The blue had become the color of mourning.

I looked at my hands. They were shaking, not from fear, but from the unbearable realization that we have become expendable to the world.
Our suffering is entertainment, our death a policy, our endurance a statistic.

I wept then, openly, shamelessly.
I, who once believed in the dignity of suffering, now see that dignity itself has been annihilated.
There is nothing noble in being forgotten.

If you are reading this, do not admire the style or the language.
Lower your head, and weep.
Because this dust, this silence, this cry, is what remains of us.

[Irish Times Politics @IrishTimesPol]

Simon Harris considers Gaza national day of solidarity https://t.co/j1KTtVtZOe via @IrishTimesPol

[Secunder Kermani @SecKermani]

In Gaza right now:

Children dying from malnutrition

People killed by Israeli soldiers whilst trying to get aid

Weak from hunger people are literally collapsing in the streets

This is insane

[Simon Coveney @simoncoveney]

Powerful words by Mike Ryan, speaking for all right thinking people!
History will judge us so harshly for not finding a way to stop this senseless slaughter & mutilation of thousands of children. https://t.co/pUSLOXHXnC

[RTÉ News @rtenews]

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has said anyone who "attempts to blame Ukraine" for the war with Russia is "clearly engaging in revisionism on speed" https://t.co/7yh3bj0RFV

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Israel’s military operation in northern Gaza was imperiling some of the last hospitals in the area, Gazan health officials said on Saturday, as Israeli forces plowed ahead with what appeared to be one of their fiercest offensives in the enclave in months. https://t.co/z0YAulA6kB

[حسام شبات @HossamShabat]

I don’t know to who we are sending the urgent calls or who we are appealing to, as it’s obvious that the north of Gaza is being exterminated and no one can stop this.
All of our screams are falling on deaf ears.

[Patricia OSullivan @Goleen2]

@ManchanMagan @RTEOne @BrittanyFerries @tyronetv_irl Manchan, Your train travel adventures are so interesting. Ar aghaidh leat agus go raibh maith agat ! 🚞🚞

[FionaDunkin @fionadunkin90]

@OPOliveBranch_

[Eoin Kelleher @EoinKr]

NCHDs have been advocating for better conditions in the health service, often at personal professional risk. NCHDs are perhaps best-placed to identify risks to patient safety on the ground, and when they raise concerns these should be taken seriously.

[Micheál Martin @MichealMartinTD]

At the @EG_Red_Crescent hub in Al Arish, I witnessed the barriers to aid getting into Gaza

All the trucks lined up, all the refused aid, hospital equipment not being allowed over the border - there is no logical reason

It’s clear people of Gaza are being collectively punished

[Patricia OSullivan @Goleen2]

@RTE_GUIDE Again!😂

[UN Humanitarian @UNOCHA]

“The world should be absolutely horrified. The world should be absolutely outraged. […] There is no safe space in #Gaza.”

🔊 A harrowing message from Gemma Connell, our team leader on the ground, after a hospital in the region was hit during an attack.

#NotATarget

[MSF International @MSF]

Earlier today, an MSF surgeon was injured inside Al-Awda hospital in north #Gaza by a shot fired from outside the facility. Our colleagues report snipers surrounding the hospital, firing on those inside. Al-Awda has been under total siege by Israeli forces since 5 December.

[MSF International @MSF]

The brutal collective punishment in #Gaza must end.

🔴 Indiscriminate attacks must stop now.

🔴 Forcible displacement must stop now.

🔴 Assaults on healthcare must stop now.

🔴 Restrictions on aid and the siege must stop now.

🔴 It all #MustStopNow!

[MSF International @MSF]

The US veto stands in contrast to the values it professes to uphold. By continuing to provide diplomatic cover for the atrocities in #Gaza, the US is signaling that international humanitarian law can be applied selectively - that the lives of some people matter less than others.

[MSF International @MSF]

🔊 One of our staff recounts the moment Israeli forces opened fire on a clearly-marked MSF convoy in #Gaza, killing two people.

We have asked the Israeli authorities for a formal explanation and we call for an independent investigation into this attack.

[ICRC @ICRC]

"We could work 24/7, and it would not be enough".

The situation facing health care workers across Gaza is devastating.
Explosions. Children with horrific injuries & burns. A lack of proper equipment & medical supplies.

Suzanne Serry, theatre nurse #Gaza, shared this message.

[Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus @DrTedros]

Today @WHO led a very high risk @UN assessment mission to Al-Shifa hospital in #Gaza.

The team saw a hospital no longer able to function: no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, medical supplies depleted.

Given this deplorable situation and the condition of many patients, including babies, health workers requested support to evacuate patients who cannot receive lifesaving care there anymore.

We are working with partners to develop an urgent evacuation plan and ask for full facilitation of this plan.

We continue to call for protection of health and of civilians. The current situation is unbearable and unjustifiable.

Ceasefire. NOW.