Join us at the national march for Palestine

We demand an end to the violence and won’t stop until Palestine is free

Blog by Emma-Jayne Geraghty, Head of Movement Building

It’s been a while since I’ve penned a blog here - I’m back from maternity leave since March and I’m actually about to celebrate my daughter’s first birthday on the 19th of July. I’d like to invite you to join Friends of the Earth at the next national march for Palestine in Dublin on the same day -  Saturday 19th July.  I cannot in good conscience celebrate my daughter’s 1st birthday when so many babies and children are no longer able to celebrate theirs due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Over 55,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel; the human suffering caused by this genocide is just unthinkable. The environmental impact is enormous too; the climate cost of the first 60 days of Israel’s war on Gaza was equivalent to burning at least 150,000 tonnes of coal.

There will be a Friends of the Earth group attending the march for Palestine in Dublin on Saturday 19th July and we’d love you to join us. This march is being organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and has been endorsed by a huge number of civil society organisations, including Friends of the Earth. You can read more about the march and its specific demands here. 

Logistics for the day

The march will start at 1pm from the Garden of Remembrance, Dublin on 19th July. I will be at the Hugh Lane gallery from 12:30pm along with other members of the Friends of the Earth staff team; Ruth Jedidja, Claudia Tormey and Nandana James. We will all be wearing green Friends of the Earth hi-vis jackets - hopefully that will make it easy for you to spot us! You might like to bring some banners or placards with you and invite some friends to join.

Why we're marching

Friends of the Earth will be marching to call for an end to the violence, to call on the Irish Government to impose sanctions on Israel and to stop arms from being transported through Irish airports and airspace. 

In particular, we’re calling on the Irish Government to stop watering down an important bill, called the Occupied Territories Bill, which aims to end trade between Ireland and illegal Israeli settlements.The original version of this Bill included both goods and services but the latest version has excluded services, which account for the majority of Ireland’s trade with the illegal settlements. It’s really important that we do everything we can to put pressure on the Government to include services in the final version of the Bill. Marching on 19th is one way to do this - see the paragraph below for another thing you can do on this. 

We are also marching in solidarity with our sister organisation, PENGON (FoE Palestine) who have tragically lost 10 colleagues due to the continuous genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli occupation. 

An urgent action you can take from home today

An Oireachtas committee is currently calling for public submissions on the Occupied Territories Bill. It’s important that they get lots of submissions asking the Government to put services back into the Bill. Submissions can be as short as one page and there is some good information on the Occupied Territories Bill that you can draw from on Trócaire’s website here.

You’ll find details on how to make your submission online here - it’s important to title your submission as follows “Submission for Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025.”

The deadline for submissions is 5pm tomorrow, Wednesday 9th July. If you don’t have time to make a submission before then you can still take action by emailing individual members of the oireachtas committee. You’ll find details for each committee member here; simply click on each member's name to get their email address. Check to see if there are committee members from your own constituency and pick those members to email. It really increases your impact when you can tell a politician that you’re a constituent and that this issue will influence how you vote! 

Our climate movement stands with Palestine

The Palestinian struggle is a struggle for human rights and climate justice. It is a struggle for liberation from the Israeli occupation, which is based on the illegal and unjust exploitation of Palestinian land, soil and natural resources.

As a mother, and as an activist I invite you to join us on July 19th at 1pm to show the Irish Government we won’t turn away from these atrocities, we demand an end to the violence and won’t stop until Palestine is free.