Thank you, Chair.
The situation in Gaza is beyond tragic. There is a genocide happening there. People are dying by the bombing being done day and night. People are starving. Schools are being used as shelters. No kids are learning. As a mother, that hurts me. It breaks my heart. I cannot sleep at night thinking about what's happening to the children in Gaza.
The number of children who have been killed in Gaza is more than in any other conflict we have seen in the world in the last many decades. Women and children are just trying to survive—to get food, water and the basic necessities of life, which every human being deserves and which we take for granted. Everyone has a right to live and everyone should be treated equally.
Just last month, on November 29, it was the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This is its second year. Both last year, on November 29, 2023, and this year, Palestinians and the people living in Gaza have been under a war, under a genocide. Thousands and thousands of people have died.
There is work UNRWA is trying to do through schools, but they have not been able to do it because no school is in existence. Instead, schools are being used as shelters to provide a place for people to lie down.
I think all members of this committee are honourable and would agree with me that.... How do we feel about the books in those schools being used for fuel to cook food? No one wants that to happen. Those books are for allowing our next generations to learn. Instead, in Gaza, books are being used to cook food for families because they have no other way to do that.
These are basic human rights that we in Canada and people around the world take for granted, and we cherish them. We have to make sure that Palestinians also have those rights. They deserve the same rights.
I can't even imagine life in Gaza, but I saw what was in West Bank and what was in Jordan, and I talked with family members. I visited one of the schools in Amman, Jordan, and the kids there, a very intellectual group of students, were representatives in what was called a “model parliament”. We talked with them, and one of the children questioned us: “Why do you teach us about human rights when we have no human rights?” It was very heartbreaking to hear a 12- or 13-year-old say that, because they have seen the killing of their family members and have seen that past generations had to leave their homeland and live in tents and camps.
For generation after generation, the people who have been displaced, starting from 1948 and 1967, have been living in camps, some in the West Bank. I went to Hebron and Bethlehem when I visited and saw the miseries. I heard the stories. People go to sleep at night thinking in their minds that they never know what's going to happen at night—how many times their houses and windows will be bombed.
As I saw myself, along with MP Ali, at Aida refugee camp, there were houses with gunshots. As soon as it started getting dark, the local people were telling us, “You should get out of this place because you never know when a bombing is going to happen.” This is the everyday life of the people.