Taoiseach slates 'despicable, disgraceful and shameful' Israeli decision on UN Palestine aid
by Louise Burne · Irish MirrorThe Taoiseach has blasted the “despicable, disgraceful and shameful” Israeli ban on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, operating in its territory.
Simon Harris said the Israeli decision reinforced the need for the EU to examine its trade deals with Israel.
President Michael D Higgins said that the move constitutes “the use of starvation as a weapon of war”. It comes amid fresh fears the move will lead to famine in Gaza.
READ MORE: Taoiseach Simon Harris hints that election could be called next week
Israeli lawmakers passed two laws on Monday that could threaten the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also known as UNRWA. It is the main UN agency providing aid in Gaza.
The Israeli bills will bar it from operating on Israeli soil, including in the Occupied Palestinian territories.
Speaking in Farmleigh yesterday [tues] ahead of a meeting with the incoming President of the European Council, António Costa, Mr Harris suggested the “most important action that the European Union could take right now is reviewing trade relations at an EU level” following its decision on UNRWA.
“What Israel and the Israeli Knesset [parliament] did was despicable, disgraceful and shameful,” he said.
“More people will die, more children will starve.
“UNRWA is needed. It is absolutely essential. The actions that we have seen in the Knesset really are absolutely shameful.
“I’ll be talking to Antonio Costa about how Europe now needs to find the moral courage to act in relation to this.
“Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and others have been calling for more actions at an EU level. I think that would be a very effective way and I'll be continuing to make that case.”
President Higgins, meanwhile, said that 100,000 people in northern Gaza are “effectively trapped with no safe place to go”.
He also said that it was of the “utmost importance that other member states of the United Nations and the European Union do not remain silent” about UNRWA.
“Given the circumstances of people starving to death, the placing under attack of the United Nations agency that is responsible for keeping them alive constitutes an appalling failure of diplomacy and the use of starvation as a weapon of war,” he said.
“In so many statements since the terrible events of October 7 and the response to it, reference has been made to the creation of a Palestinian state. This has been declared to be unacceptable and unviable due to ‘no space’ by Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose intentions are clearly ones of not responding to illegal occupations but rather to intensify them, even if it requires the removal of populations.
“It is time to stop this horror of history.”
Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA's staff members participated in the Hamas attacks on October 7 2023. It also suggested staff have militant ties and that it has found Hamas military assets in or under the agency's facilities.
The agency fired nine employees after an investigation but denied it knowingly aided armed groups.
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