By Aysu Bicer
DUBLIN (AA) - Students and activists demonstrated Wednesday in support of Palestine at the University College Dublin (UCD) in the Irish capital of Dublin.
UCD students and activists gathered on the school’s campus to mark the 76th Nakba, or The Great Catastrophe.
Demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags also held placards that read: "Nakba never ended" and "Increase the resistance."
From there, protesters marched to a nearby bridge carrying a symbolic baby wrapped in white cloth to draw attention to the babies and children killed in the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip.
Additionally, demonstrators carried a "key" symbolizing homes lost by Palestinians during the Nakba.
Richard Boyd Barrett, a member of the Irish House of Representatives, voiced strong criticism of his government’s failure to impose sanctions on Israel amid rising tensions and violence in Palestinian territories.
Barrett expressed to Anadolu his support for student-led protests that are calling for decisive action against the Israeli occupation.
He highlighted the growing frustration among students.
"They are rightly angry that the Irish government has failed to impose meaningful sanctions on the Israeli occupation.
"So with the government failing to act as students are acting themselves, and they are demanding that institutions like universities break older links with the apartheid regime and that's what we need. That's what our government should be doing, or where the government fails, the students are acting," he said.
"In many cases, these protests highlight the real logic of the Israeli occupation, a regime of ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing since the Nakba. Today is the anniversary of the Nakba, and it exposes the true character of the Zionist regime. It is based on violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocidal policies against the Palestinian people," said Barrett.
He condemned the international support that Israel receives, particularly from the US and European governments.
"We are seeing the horror of this genocide, disgracefully supported by the US and other Western governments. This must end. Israel could not commit these crimes without Western involvement and complacency," he added.