THERE ARE COMPELLING reasons why Palestinian freedom and self-determination resonate so strongly with the Irish public. Our history, our psyche, our sense of being, have been profoundly shaped by our own history of colonisation and occupation.

Colonisation belongs to a shameful history. This is supposed to be the era of decolonisation, the final undoing of illegitimate forces of brute power, yet in 2025, colonisation is a reality for Palestinians.

Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians did not end with the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic), where over 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee. Israel has pursued the forced removal of Palestinians from areas under its control, particularly those enacted following its seizure of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip in 1967.

This month, Israel approved 19 new settlements in the West Bank, bringing the total number of settlement approvals over the past three years to 69.

Today, there are at least 700,000 Israeli settlers living illegally on Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Every single day, my ActionAid colleagues, partners, and the people we support across the occupied Palestinian territory experience the trauma of living under a brutal occupation that severely curtails their basic rights and freedoms – just because they are Palestinian – and results in effective military control over all aspects of their lives.

State-backed settler violence has surged, with incidents rising from 532 in 2021 to 1,449 in 2024, and more than 1,600 in 2025, as of November. Settler violence is now the leading driver of displacement in Bedouin and herding communities. In the Jordan Valley, entire communities are being erased through settler harassment often carried out in coordination with Israeli forces.

Between October 2023 and November 2025, Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 1,000 Palestinians across the West Bank, more than 70% of them during military raids in the northern West Bank that have flattened refugee camps. Military raids have forcibly displaced almost 32,000 people, the largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967.

It does not get as much attention........

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