ActionAid Ireland calls on the international community to act to prevent a full-scale invasion of Rafah and a bloodbath

May 9, 2024

ActionAid Ireland has called on Israel to abandon its catastrophic plan for a full-scale invasion of Rafah with reports of thousands of terrified citizens fleeing the southern Gazan city as airstrikes intensify and aid delivery is disrupted.

ActionAid Ireland CEO, Karol Balfe, said it is now imperative that all states do everything in their power to prevent further military assault in Rafah. “The ongoing military offensive in Rafah is already having a devastating impact on its starved and traumatised residents, thousands of whom have been forced to flee for the fourth, fifth, sixth time or more time in seven months. The number of deaths and injuries is rising, and the humanitarian situation is worsening as aid delivery is disrupted. The international community has repeatedly warned that this cannot be allowed to take place. Now is the time to act.”

Ms Balfe said as negotiations resume today, a permanent ceasefire is of the utmost importance and the only way to put an end to the killing and the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There were reports that near continuous shelling in some parts of the city has left dozens dead or injured, with medics at the Kuwaiti Hospital in western Rafah saying they had received the bodies of 35 people, and 129 wounded in the last 24 hours alone.

Thousands of people – including ActionAid staff and partners – are fleeing after evacuation orders were issued for the eastern part of the city by Israel on Monday. There is nowhere safe for them to go, nor do areas which have been designated as ’safe zones’ have the infrastructure or capacity to receive them. Al-Mawasi, for example is already hugely overcrowded with more than 400,000 people living there.

She added: “If the Israeli military continues with a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, it will be full blown disaster. There is no doubt that an unthinkable number of men, women and children will die. People in Rafah are living in full blown panic and terror. It would be indefensible to order the evacuation of more than a million people from the area when there is nowhere safe for them to go, nor with the capacity to receive them. Any attempt to do so may well amount to forcible transfer – a grave violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime.”

A joint briefing note by NGOs says no aid has entered Gaza through its two key crossings at all yesterday. While the Israeli military say the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened today, the Rafah crossing – which was seized by the military on Monday – remains closed. With much of the population facing catastrophic levels of hunger, any reduction in aid risks pushing people further towards famine. Fuel, which is essential for hospitals and for trucks to be able to distribute aid within Gaza, is already running dangerously low.

Rafah-based Amjad Al Shawa,the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) – an umbrella organisation of 30 Palestinian NGOs and a partner of ActionAid Palestine, told ActionAid in a voice note about his fears regarding the situation in Rafah.

“We have serious concerns regarding the military land operation in Rafah and the Israeli control of Rafah crossing…we warn [against] famine and these continuous Israeli [military] attacks on the Palestinian civilians. At the same time the shortage of medication, food itemsand other needed items, which will lead to [further] deepening of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

He said: “We are calling urgently on the international community to act in order to stop such a military incursionand the Israeli [military’s] massacres on the Palestinian people, and to open all the crossings for the passengers and for different humanitarian and commercial items. Also, mainly for the patients and the injured people who are in bad need [of] medical treatment outside the Gaza strip as this will lead to [deteriorating] their health conditions.”

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.