Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

Sue Pentel was among various speakers from Jewish and Palestinian backgrounds to address the event at the Peace Garden on Saturday.

The Jews for Palestine representative told those gathered that those who stood for peace, Jewish and Palestinian, would not be silenced.

“As we face into International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024, and look squarely at the ongoing genocide in Gaza, we must face a terrible truth that never again is now.

Sue Pentel, Jews for Palestine Ireland, speaking at the Holocaust Memorial Day vigil for Gaza, held in the Peace Garden, on Saturday afternoon. Photo: George Sweeney

"31,000 dead or missing, 62,108 wounded, Gaza on the brink of starvation, not because there is a famine in Gaza but because Israel is stopping food and aid coming in. Israel’s 110 plus day assault on Gaza has destroyed infrastructure, hospitals, churches universities, schools, UNRWA shelters, residential blocks have been blocked- Gaza has become a grew wasteland.”

Sue Pentel said Israeli forces and illegal settlers were also continuing with “aggression” in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Those gathered were told that the rhetoric used was deeply troubling.

"The world has watched in horror while the Israeli government and its allies sought to legitimise this genocidal war against the indigenous Palestinian people and through the weaponisation of Holocaust memory, and Jewish history, conflating Zionism, a political settler colonial project, with Judaism.

People attend a Holocaust Memorial Day vigil for Gaza, held in the Peace Garden on Saturday afternoon, supported by Jews for Palestine Ireland, Derry-Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Derry TUC. Photo: George Sweeney

"Tuning reality on its head, Palestinians are now the ‘evil perpetrators’ and the Israelis the ‘victims’. Justifying death, starvation, collective punishment and ethnic cleansing in the name of Israeli and Jewish safety and security in order to silence opposition to their policies and actions, and to silence the Palestinian voices.”

Words and phrases, it was said, were being used “to avert their gaze from the live-streamed genocide that is taking place”.

"We will hear about the existensial threat to the state of Israel in a frame that aims to drown out the voice of the oppressed to deny the very existence of Palestine; to maintain Israel’s right to occupy, displace and now commit genocide in the name of Zionist safety and security.

"But Palestinian voices and Jewish voices who stand on the side of peace and justice for Palestine will not be silenced.”

"'Never again' is now": Jews for Palestine speak in Derry on Holocaust Memorial Day