LAST week tens of thousands of Celtic supporters throughout Parkhead raised Palestinian flags to demonstrate their support and solidarity with the beleaguered Palestinian children and civilians who are being deliberately slaughtered by Israeli forces in Gaza. At the weekend over 200,000 people marched through London and thousands more marched through Belfast, Dublin and other towns and cities in Ireland to show their support for the Palestinian people under siege in their homeland.

Today following the murder of another 100 innocent Palestinian civilians by the Israelis using missiles supplied by the US, UNICEF issued a statement saying that “Gaza is now a graveyard for children.”

Whilst they issued this statement the Board of Celtic Football Club announced that they were "suspending the season tickets of the Green Brigade". One of the reasons they outlined for this ticket suspension was the flying of Palestinian flags. This statement by a Celtic Board who are out of touch with the majority of Celtic supporters comes the day after British Home Secretary Suella Braverman labelled the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters who had marched through British cities at the weekend in support of the people of Gaza as taking part in “hate marches”.

Despite the lies and propaganda of the Israeli authorities and many media outlets, fortunately ordinary people have been intelligent enough to ascertain the Truth.
Whilst political leaders across Ireland and Britain have shown their support for the war crimes being committed by the IDF as, “ Israel has the right to defend itself”, it has been the ordinary people mainly in working class communities who have came out in their tens of thousands to defend the basic human rights of the Palestinian people to survive.
Never again should we pay heed to any of these so-called political 'leaders' when they talk of defending people’s human rights.

Somehow in their eyes the lives of Ukrainians and Israelis are important but the lives of innocent Palestinian children and civilians are not worth anything.

I would encourage people of all ages, abilities and classes to continue to come on to the streets, write to newspapers, phone in to television and radio shows and defend the right of the Palestinian people to live free from ethnic cleansing and daily war crimes.

The next time you see a Palestinian child, mother, senior citizen or civilian being placed into a body bag following another attack by the Israeli armed forces, think of your own children and families and be thankful they are not enduring what innocent Palestinians have had to endure for 75 years and are now being subjected to every day.

We all have a voice, please speak up for humanity and demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to the decades of violence being inflicted on the Palestinian people in their own homeland.

Michael Doherty, 
Belfast 11