Blag

Last day and the weather is foul. Some of us meet and talk with Reuven Moskovitch, a writer, historian and holocaust survivor. He is 80 years of age and a former secretary of the peace movement in Israel, a peace movement that for years has just got smaller and smaller. We have coffee in the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family in Jerusalem. This is a guest house and cultural centre in the old city, on the Via Dolorosa. As we sit in their "Viennese Café" Mr Moskovitch talks about his life. He is one of the founding members of Neve Shalom, an inter confessional village established in Latrun.

He talks about how people laughed at the thought that you could have somewhere where Jews, and Muslims could live together and is very proud that now there are 200 people living there Jews Palestinians and Druzes. There is also a school for peace.

Obviously the people living there are not immune to what is happening and there can be quite a lot of tension. After coffee, as we walk along towards the Wailing Wall, Mr Moskovitch points out the various Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa. He also points out the apartment bought by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon purely as a means to establish an Israeli foothold in the Arab part of the Old City of Jerusalem. Sharon never spent a single night there yet the Israeli military guard it at great cost to all involved. I look at the young Palestinian whose stall we have stopped beside. "It's disgraceful", I say. He just smiles and nods.

A little further along we come to the checkpoint at the entrance from this side to the Wailing Wall. When we were here earlier in the week we had to turn left and walk around the area because our guide was Palestinian and they are not allowed to enter.

Today we pass through unhindered. The 80-year-old Mr Moskovitch is at pains to tell people that the Israeli government view is not the only view. His strong views on this call to mind the contribution of a young Scottish member of the delegation to our round-up discussion last night. He was very forthright in saying that as a member of the Jewish Diaspora the Israeli government does not do what it does in his name.

Mr Moskovitch now talks about not losing hope in a situation that is almost hopeless. He is quite pessimistic because what he calls the propaganda and the lie is now the view of most Israelis. He feels that even in liberal parts of Israeli society there is a view that they are the chosen people and that this is their promised land - a land they don't want to share with anyone else. He has a very different view of what the promised land means. He is also very critical of the EU for continuing to give support to the Israeli government given the policies they now carry out. He is quite clear in his mind.

The EU should tell the Israelis that if they want to follow these policies they will do so without EU support. Back at the hotel some of the delegation prepares to leave. A notice on the notice board beside reception shows the schedule of departures throughout the day. Mine is the last, as a couple of us won't fly home until early tomorrow morning. There are sad farewells as many of us have formed strong bonds over the last week together and the common bond of people who have witnessed what no one should ever witness.

A general strike has been called today all over the West Bank and Gaza because of the Israeli decision to evacuate 88 families from their home at Kfar-Selwan in East Jerusalem - a real threat to the Palestinian dream.

The Israelis must be fairly confident that they will get continued uncritical support even from the new US administration I feel so angry that they can announce this confiscation even after the appointment of George Mitchell, thus signalling their intention to resist any pressure or encouragement for a change of approach. I also wonder how I and the other MEPs who are here can make people in our own countries understand how critical it is to oppose the cutting to pieces of the West Bank and of East Jerusalem?

Do people in Ireland realise that while all eyes are on Gaza Israel is working in Jerusalem and the West Bank to cut off any prospect of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem at its capital? Does the West have any idea of the repercussions if hope of a viable Palestinian state is lost?

It is important that it was the PLO who decided on the general strike. If it gets a big response then this is a signal that Palestinians are united in the defence of East Jerusalem.

Talk of Palestinian Unity has come centre stage to our meetings following the news from Cairo. The 14 different Palestinian parties have decided, not yet to form a unity government but to move to dialogue on setting up such a consensus government and on resolving other issues such as elections and having one Palestinian security force.

We meet with Mustapha Barghouti of 'Democratic Initiative' who has just come back from Cairo and who explains the detail of the five committees that have been formed representing all 14 parties in order to address the range of issues that touch on Palestinian unity.

People in West Belfast will remember the time this Palestinian political figure had accepted an invitation to address a meeting in St Mary's College University during the West Belfast Festival. The Israeli government wouldn't let him travel and I remember to this day the strength of feeling in the hall as I chaired the discussion with him by video link.

Today he tells us some of the detail of what was agreed in Cairo by way of working towards unity among the Palestinians. He feels strongly that they can get nowhere with Israel or the western world while they are so divided amongst themselves, and it is hard to disagree.

Palestinian unity and moves towards a consensus government and towards elections is also a sizable part of our discussions with Abdullah Abdullah and Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Most of the discussion centres of course on Gaza, on the violations of international human rights standards and on the need for pressure in the European Parliament to ensure that Israel can't just get away with it with no sanction against them of any kind.

As we pose for photographs afterwards, Abdullah Abdullah tells me that his masters thesis in university was on a comparison between Lebanon and Ireland. It's a small world!

Travelling back towards Jerusalem we see that the General Strike has been a success - so successful in fact that there is no where open in Ramallah for us to eat. Shops are closed and people have really responded. Feelings clearly run very deep about East Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem we meet with UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. There we have a presentation from Ray Dolphin that really brings home to us not only the vast challenge facing the people of Gaza after the recent Israeli bombings but also the particular affect that these bombings had on a population that had no safe places, no bomb shelters and nowhere to go as the border crossings are closed and they are not permitted to leave.

He also shows us the reality of the bleak humanitarian situation for many in the West Bank caused by a combination of checkpoints, trenches, road barriers, road gates, earth mounds and the now infamous Wall. He gives a very practical example of a farmer in Jayyus whose farm is on the other side of the wall. To get to his farm he will need a permit and few get such a permit. Even with a permit, once across the farmer will have to stay there for at least 8 hours rather than being able to come and go, and will have to be back by nightfall. If he has a medical emergency or an agricultural accident he will have to wait until the barrier is open again before he can get treatment and there are restrictions on what he can bring in by way of farm implements or pesticides.

He tells us the presentation is available on the website at www.ocha.opt.org. By doing an overlay of the various closures and barriers one on top of the other he shows us their cumulative effect. A row breaks out because several MEPs in the delegation want him to spell out clearly the political consequences of this and he says that as a UN worker this is not his function. To me the political message from what he says couldn't be starker. Unless all of this is reversed there can never be a viable Palestinian state.

Our last meeting of the day, back at the hotel, is with Israeli human rights organisations. Young, committed, Israeli human rights campaigners talk to us from three different NGOs; B'tselem The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Gisha the Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement and the Director for the Occupied Palestinian Territories of Physicians for Human Rights. They underline many of the messages we have heard already, and it is good to see their commitment to international human rights standards.

They set out for us a number of the breaches of international humanitarian law in the last few weeks, and questions to be asked about the behaviour and policy of the Israeli forces, including the deliberate targeting and killing of civilians and the denial of emergency medical aid to the injured. They make clear their remit as Israeli organisations is to look at the actions of the Israeli forces. They stress that in most cases it is important to look at the policy and not just at the actions of individual soldiers. By now this list has become familiar to many of us but it shocking nonetheless to hear it re-iterated. And as always, just when I think I have started to grasp the enormity of it all I hear some new detail that horrifies me even more. Amnesty International has already released a report and Human Rights Watch is due to release a number of reports on Gaza. If these do not provoke an outcry then we have truly lost our ability to feel outrage at the wanton disregard of human rights.

The young Israeli human rights campaigners stop short of calling for Israel to be investigated for war crimes but the story they tell leaves me in no doubt that this needs to happen.

By building the Wall around Bethlehem, the Israelis have choked the life out of the place. The elected Mayor of Bethlehem describes it as the unseen destruction of the town. Moreover, the wall is being used to define the border and to further annex Palestinian land.

The Mayor tells us that if the settlements continue then within one year there will not be enough land to build a viable Palestinian state. None of the citizens can leave the city unless they have a special permit from the Israelis. A woman peace worker tells us that the work they were doing building dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian women has now been disrupted because the Israeli women are not allowed to go into Bethlehem and the women from Bethlehem are not allowed out to where the Israeli women live.

There are three sources of income for Bethlehem. The biggest is not surprisingly pilgrimage and tourism. Last time I was here the wall had choked off most of the tourist traffic into Bethlehem. It was like a ghost town so I'm interested to see if there is any more life around the place now. I had since heard that things had improved and the Mayor of Bethlehem tells us that once the Israelis stopped making each tourist get out of the bus at the checkpoint things started to pick up.

It is much better now but still not what you'd expect for a city that houses the famous Church of the Nativity.

Agriculture was the second biggest industry but now all the cultivated land is on the other side of the wall so this form of income is cut off from them. The third biggest industry was those who went to work in Jerusalem, but this has dropped dramatically because people cannot get a permit.

Most of the children of Bethlehem don't know Jerusalem and have never been there even though it is only 9km away. Even someone who has had a stroke or heart attack can only get specialised treatment in Jerusalem and must be transferred at the checkpoint from an Arab ambulance to an Israeli ambulance, which is medically really dangerous. Many people who visit Bethlehem have painted slogans on the apartheid wall. Some are messages of hope and peace. Others are humorous. One very serious question painted on the wall really struck a chord with me: "Israel - have you become the evil you deplored?"

The wall snakes around the whole of Bethlehem and it also cuts in two what was previously the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and on to Hebron. Now it is a dead end, and we move on to Hebron by another route. When last I was in Hebron there were efforts under way to entice Palestinians back into the Old City of Hebron and to revitalise the area.

The Hebron Rehabilitation are regenerating and restoring many of the apartment buildings which Palestinians had abandoned due to harassment and the pressure of living under very difficult conditions. As with Bethlehem this morning, I am keen to see whether things in Hebron have changed for the better or worse. In fact when we arrive many things are the same as before. Hebron is well known for the particular violence of the settlers against the Palestinians.

In a story reminiscent of Holy Child in Ardoyne we meet with young Italians from an NG0 whose main job for a couple of years was to accompany primary school children to school in a village near Hebron in order to deter attacks on them by settlers. Since 2006 this function has now been carried out by Israeli soldiers. The international NGO is not allowed to accompany the children any more but they still monitor from a distance because the children are frightened of the Israeli soldiers.

One positive note is that the work of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee has indeed progressed and many of the old buildings have been restored and preserved. They have renovated more than 800 apartments and prevented them being either wrecked or taken over by settlers.

Once the settlers take over a house it is no just the house that is lost to the Palestinians. Suddenly there is a whole area around the house where Palestinians are no longer allowed access. Palestinian families who move into the renovated apartments get free restoration and free electricity, and even if they do not own the renovated apartment they are allowed to stay there for free. In spite of all of that there are still vacant apartments as quite a few people prefer to live where there is greater security, rather than put up with constant harassment from the settlers. We walk around the old city and the Israeli forces try to prevent us even from going into some of the streets I was able to visit .

I'm standing in the middle of a stand off with the Israelis outside the Ibrahimi Mosque where the prophet Abraham and his wife Sara as well as Isaac and Jacob are buried.

I am talking on the phone to Feile FM live, telling them about the stand off as best I can as well as describing the horrors of Gaza as I experienced them yesterday as behind me an armoured jeep arrives with reinforcements to deal with the formidable Italian MEP Luisa Morgantini who never takes no for an answer where Palestine is concerned.

Now it is late in the evening and we are heading back towards Jerusalem after a meeting with the Mayor of Hebron. As so often on this trip his message to us is that nothing can move forward unless the settlements go. He also tells us he has challenged political figures abroad to tell him if they could live alongside the type of crazed and aggressive settlers that have moved en force into Hebron. With a wry smile he entertains us with anecdotes of those international figures who came to see for themselves and had to admit they couldn't put up with being stuck to the Hebron-type settlers either!

In touch of irony the earlier stand off with the Israeli forces ended up with a victory for the good guys and we got to walk down the streets where we wanted to go. However, before we got back to the bus the skies opened and we were all drenched. The soldiers didn't laugh but whether that was because of our status as MEPs or their lack of a sense of humour I'll never know. As I sit on the bus my mind strays back to the question Feile FM asked me about what Europe can do. There is only one answer given all that's going on here; suspend the EU-Israeli preferential trade agreement until Israel respects human rights and ensure that there is accountability over the slaughter and destruction in Gaza in recent weeks.

We leave the hotel at 6.00am to travel to Gaza. We still haven't got confirmation that the Israeli authorities will definitely let us into Gaza. Apparently this is par for the course. We decide that the MEPs will make the two hour journey to Gaza anyway, as they haven't said they won't let us in either.

The staff members will stay behind because the Israelis have already told us that our whole delegation is too big to get into Gaza. On the bus, Italian MEP Luisa Morgantini explains the procedures and the planned programme for the day. Fifteen minutes away from Gaza we hear that the Israelis will let everyone in except three people.

We all speculate as to who the three people will be. When we reach the checkpoint I hear that one Green MEP has not yet been cleared but all the others have.

She had been commiserating with me before as we speculated that I might be one of those blocked. We are hopeful that she too will be cleared and that we can all go in together.

The wall behind and around the checkpoint looks for all the world like Long Kesh, but the 'terminal itself is a vast building - part glass part concrete - that could be one of the many shiny big factories that have sprung up all over Ireland in recent years. Inside it is big and deserted. Apart from our delegation just one humanitarian aid worker from Oxfam waits to go through. Before the siege there were thousands of people flowing in and out of Gaza.

Now, because of the siege virtually no one can go.

In the end the crossing goes quickly and smoothly. The Israeli army checks our passports against the list they have of who is to be admitted and we pass through passport control. They have decided to let everyone in.

Moving from the Israeli side into Gaza we pass through a large swathe of empty ruined lands. This includes a former industrial estate which the Israeli Defence Forces some years ago completely demolished at the time of their unilateral withdrawal. It is quite eerie and we haven't even reached the parts recently shelled yet. When we come to Jabalia camp which houses 120,000 refugees, the contrast with the pristine, clinical, empty checkpoint at Erez couldn't be greater.

As we enter the UN food distribution centre, we see that the police station next door has been bombed. UNRWA previously distributed food aid to the worst off of the refugees. Now they need to cover almost everyone as people's livelihoods have been swept away, leaving them dependent on food aid.

Not only that, but the trucks being let in are a fraction of what is needed.

There used to be 700 trucks a day coming into Gaza. Now on a given day there might be as little as 20 or 30 trucks or even none at all.

Later, I can hardly keep from crying as I stand in the ruins of Izbet Abed Rabbo. I speak briefly to a woman who stands in front of the ruins of her home. All around us are mounds of rubble that until recently were houses.

All in all 250 houses were reduced to rubble in this one small area and 1,500 families were badly affected in the wider area.

At the bombed out Atta Abu Joba company - the largest factory in Gaza and the only cement packaging factory in all Palestine, we hear that the bombing of the civilian and business infrastructure has been quite deliberate and precise. This is not accidental or 'collateral damage'. This factory, for example, was bombed in the last three days of the war. It was not bombed from the air. The owner tells us the Israeli soldiers had time to get out of the tanks and place mines around the base of the columns holding up the plant. So they know there was no danger from this building.

By destroying this factory they are also delaying the rebuilding of people's houses in the area. The only trucks coming into Gaza are the emergency aid from the big agencies. The whole economy is at a standstill. I thought I had seen a lot through the conflict in the North of Ireland, but nothing prepared me for this. Schools damaged, hospitals wrecked, homes reduced to rubble. And still the people keep going somehow. Families stay with relatives, kids go to school, life of some sort goes on. But what kind if life?

And how will these children be affected by what they have lived through? How can the world carry on as if this had not happened? It's obscene! Having watched footage on the TV of a convoy of white UN vans travelling through a war ravaged area I never though I would end up travelling inside such a convoy or be haunted by the images we see all around us.

In Gaza city we meet first with John Ging, Director of UNRWA operations, Gaza, and then with representatives of civil society. John Ging sums up the situation when he says to us that this is not about being pro-Israeli or anti-Israeli but about being pro basic fundamental humanity, based on the rule of law. He also stresses that there have to be mechanisms of accountability and that the parents of the hundreds of children killed demand justice.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the international community the high contracting parties to the Geneva Convention to ensure there is accountability coming out of this, he says. The civil society representatives thank us for coming, but not surprisingly some challenge us about what we are going to do besides visit. They don't feel there is any safety or security for their future and want a commitment that the same thing will not happen again. We tell them we will campaign to see the necessary steps taken ensure a better future for them but we can give no promises. It is heartbreaking.

As we leave this meeting we see other bombed out buildings, including health facilities and the American School which has been flattened by F16 bombers. We travel back through the checkpoint and although coming back does not go as smoothly as going in the problems seem little compared to what we have seen and heard.

As we finish the day in Jaffa speaking to those involved in human rights advocacy there, including a young man who spent a couple of months working with the Human Rights Commission in Belfast, we are determined that our delegation visit to Gaza today cannot be just a visit. We must find a way for it to strengthen the move towards real justice, accountability and conflict resolution.

Tomorrow we head to Gaza where the continuing siege is the major issue to be addressed. This is not to take away from the awful humanitarian crisis. On the contrary we must give emergency aid. But just giving aid will not be enough. I am convinced of that from everyone I spoke to here today.

Major international players now push for movement on re-opening the crossings and the Palestinians say no reconstruction of Gaza is possible without this.

Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad, who spoke to us in our meeting this evening of the recent Israeli assault on Gaza as the single biggest loss of life, as well as injury, damage and loss of infrastructure, stressed that the upcoming international conference in Egypt next Monday must deal not only with financial donations or opening some checkpoints. The passages must be open for goods and people and the ongoing siege and restrictions and permit requirements must end.

He also asks if Netenyahu is prepared to unequivocally subscribe to a two state solution.

What he says reflects a view I have heard a lot since I arrived here. The donor conference on 2 March in Sharm El Sheik is useful but there will not be economic progress without dealing with the political problems. This means ending the lack of free movement in and out of Gaza, the ongoing settlement activity in the West Bank and the division of Gaza from the West Bank.

Intra Palestinian problems also dominate everyday discussions with people here. The Egyptians have been brokering talks but the prospects of Palestinian unity or of forming a national unity government don't look great.