Israel-Hamas war: Men with Irish links from both sides of divide discuss the conflict

Two men, one from the Israeli side and the other on the Palestinian – both with Irish connections – are struggling with the ongoing violence in this seemingly intractable Middle Eastern conflict.

Malcolm Gafson was at his home outside Tel Aviv for the Jewish Shabbat on October 7th when he heard the air raid sirens go off early in the morning.

The Hamas militant group had started firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, in what was the beginning of an unprecedented attack on Israel that would leave an estimated 1,400 people dead. It triggered a retaliatory campaign of Israeli aerial strikes on Gaza that has killed an estimated 5,000 people to date.

Gafson, the Dublin-born chairman of the Israel-Ireland Friendship League, has been reaching out to members of the Irish community since then. Dún Laoghaire man Thomas Hand’s daughter Emily (8) was fatally shot in a kibbutz near the Gaza border, while Jennifer Damti’s daughter, Kim (22), died following an attack by Hamas on a music festival.

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Gafson’s son is a member of a rescue unit in the Israeli army which was deployed to help survivors of the October 7th attack.

“He’d never seen such brutality,” says Gafson. “Everybody in Israel is in mourning; they’ve gone through trauma.

“There is vengeance in the air and that goes along the political spectrum here: left; centre; right. Everybody’s got the same attitude: now is the time to put a stop to them [Hamas].”

There have also been calls in Israel for prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to resign or leave office once the war is over. According to recent polling by the newspaper Maariv, 80 per cent of Israelis believe he should publicly accept responsibility for the security failures that led to the attacks.

“I don’t think it’s the time to start talking about anybody going,” Gafson says. “Maybe after all this is over, then, I’m sure, there will be some inquiry about how all this happened... We were totally exposed security-wise, military-wise for the first time in 50 years since the Yom Kippur War.”

The Yom Kippur War began with Egypt and Syria launching a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 to reclaim the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, which was captured during the Six-Day War in 1967. The attack led Gafson to fly from Dublin to Israel via Paris to volunteer for the war effort.

He recalls how during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War there were pro-Israel rallies on the streets in Dublin, which culminated at the Mansion House.

“Over the past maybe 20-30 years, perhaps, the emphasis has shifted a little bit,” he says.

Palestinian human rights activist Shawn Jabarin recalls spending a year studying for a masters in law at what is now the University of Galway.

“I felt that Palestine was part of the public debate. The people, they knew it well,” he says.

At the end of his course, which was supported by Irish Aid, Jabarin’s young family joined him for two months in Ireland. “They felt that it was like their country, so friendly,” he says.

He then returned to the occupied West Bank to assume his current role as general director of the human rights watchdog, Al Haq, which forensically documents human rights abuses by the Israeli authorities.

“The expansion of settlements; the land confiscation; the restrictions; the torture, since 1948 until today,” he says.

It also investigates abuses committed by the Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous administration which governs parts of the West Bank, and is widely viewed as weak and corrupt by local Palestinians.

“Philosophically speaking, the role of the government or the state is to protect but there is no protection provided to Palestinians by the occupying power, or by the PA [Palestinian Authority], which is also under occupation,” Jabarin says.

The fact that Palestinian civilians in Gaza are currently being killed by Israeli forces is not exceptional, says Jabarin, but “the scale, and the statements and the clear intention to commit crimes against humanity are”.

“These crimes are taking place in front of cameras – everyone sees them,” he says, adding that he believes the threshold for the crime of genocide has been met by Israel for its attacks on Gaza.

“The leaders of big countries like Germany and France are supporting Israel as they close their eyes to what’s going on against Palestinians as if Palestinians are not humans; as if international law doesn’t apply to them... From our point of view, the US and other European countries are complicit in the crimes.”

Without a ceasefire, without an end to the offensive, there is no way for the killing to be stopped, he adds.

“We would like to thank Ireland for its position at the EU and international level and calling for a ceasefire,” he says.

“Behind all of these processes is a political plan to transfer civilians to Egypt and to destroy Gaza completely,” says Jabarin.

Since October 7th, 90 Palestinians have also been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, where local residents have been restricted from moving from one area to another.

“Without addressing the root cause of the problem there is no way for peace or stability,” says Jabarin. “Palestinians must have their fundamental rights and self-determination.”