LONDON

Head of the Sinn Fein Party has reaffirmed its stance against Israeli attacks in Gaza -- "the graveyard of children" -- and called for an urgent cease-fire.

Ireland is one of the few European countries that have called for a truce in the Palestinian territory which is under heavy Israeli bombardment since the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas, as a majority have only backed calls for humanitarian pauses.

Irish members of the European Parliament have also demanded a cease-fire, while Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called for an end to the fighting to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Last week, Clare Daly, an Irish member of the EU lawmaking body said Israel has "spent a month pounding Gaza into rubble and filling the streets with children's blood."

Along with the government, the main opposition Sinn Fein party voiced strong support for Palestinian people.

Saying that the Palestinian people have a right to their homeland, party leader Mary Lou McDonald said what Palestinian people have been going through is "having endured generations of dispossession, occupation, oppression, apartheid – human rights violations that should shake humanity."

"Carpet bombing civilians, collective punishment, massacring children in their thousands is not defense," she told a party event on Saturday, stressing that these are "not justifiable responses to the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7th."

"The world sees Israeli actions for what they are: Barbaric, hateful, cowardly, war crimes," McDonald said.

Recalling that a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza, she said the besieged enclave has become "the graveyard of children."

"We ask, where is the protection of international law for every child killed in Gaza? For every Gazan mother holding the cold body of their dead child? Israel cannot be allowed to commit atrocities with impunity."