“There is no safe space in Gaza and the world should be ashamed.”

Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh’s closing speech at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will stay with me forever. Devastating and forensic in equal measure, Ní Ghrálaigh spoke for millions of people around the world who have been utterly appalled by the horrors unfolding live on our screens. “This is the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time,” she said, “in the desperate and so far vain hope that the world might do something.”

Here was an Irish lawyer — who had previously worked on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry — speaking on behalf of South Africa, in support of the Palestinian people. For the Irish and the South Africans, the plight of occupied peoples is only too familiar. It should not come as any surprise, then, that South Africa’s case opened by placing Israel’s latest activity “within the broader context of Israel’s twenty-five-year apartheid, fifty-six-year occupation and sixteen-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.” It was remarkably refreshing to hear South Africa articulate something so obvious yet routinely ignored by politicians in this country. Exposing the shallow state of our own political system, the hearing will go down in history as a momentous display of international solidarity from a people who know what it’s like to endure — and dismantle — apartheid.