Your morning briefing: Israel’s response ‘beyond self-defence’, says Varadkar; Jason Corbett’s first wife ‘did not die of asthma attack’

Israel war resembles something ‘approaching revenge’, Taoiseach says

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that Israel’s response to the October 7th attack by Hamas “resembles something more approaching revenge”.

Speaking to reporters in the South Korean capital of Seoul, Mr Varadkar said collective punishment was a breach of international law and that Israel’s response to the attacks had gone beyond self-defence.

“I think it’s very important we never forget where this started. This phase of the conflict started with a Hamas attack on Israel, where 1400 civilians were killed, including one person who’s a dual Israeli-Irish citizen. I strongly believe that, like any state, Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to go after Hamas so that they cannot do this again. But what I’m seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self-defence. It looks, it resembles something more approaching revenge.”

Israel-Hamas Conflict

• Israeli forces enter Gaza City as foreign nationals flee: Israeli forces were on Thursday fighting in Gaza City neighbourhoods and said they had sealed off the city as they closed in on Hamas’s military and civilian centres of power.
• Palestinian Bedouin community forced to leave as settler attacks escalate in West Bank: A pile of one family’s shoes, an emptied fridge lying on its side, several smashed solar panels. In Wadi a-Seeq in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the belongings of the Bedouin Palestinian community that called the isolated hamlet home for five decades lie scattered across the ground and beneath collapsing roofs.

The best from Opinion

• Erstwhile imperialists’ defence of Israel’s merciless slaughter makes a mockery of democracy: “I write at a moment of great anguish for the world,” Craig Mokhiber began his letter of departure as the director of the United Nation’s human rights office in New York. He said “a genocide [was] unfolding before our eyes” and the organisation he served seemed powerless to stop it. He was talking about Israel’s mass killings and blockade of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza, writes Justine McCarthy.

Top News Stories

• Eirgrid offers landowners €50,000 for each pylon they allow on their land: National grid operator EirGrid is offering landowners €50,000 for each pylon they allow on their land as it bids to complete a high-powered electricity line linking the Republic and the North.
• Jason Corbett’s first wife did not die of asthma attack, court told: The first wife of Jason Corbett did not die from an asthma attack, a medical expert commissioned by prosecutors in North Carolina has said.
• Excruciating day as court hears Molly Martens’s choking claim and ‘surreptitious’ recording: This was, by any yardstick, the most excruciating day of testimony for Jack and Sarah Corbett Lynch, who had to sit impassively while life inside their home at 160 Panther Creek Court in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was dissected and displayed with forensic coldness.
• National air quality forecast will raise public awareness of pollutants: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a national air quality forecast in a bid to increase public awareness of the concentration of pollutants in their local area.
• RTÉ spends nearly €500,000 on Ryan Tubridy reports: RTÉ has spent nearly €500,000 on a series of external reviews commissioned in the aftermath of the controversy around misstated payments to Ryan Tubridy, it has emerged.
• Emergency flood relief schemes to be extended: The Cabinet has approved the extension of two emergency business flooding schemes which could be worth up to €100,000 for the worst affected.
• Dublin city centre street parking charges to hit €4 per hour in some areas: Charges for parking on some Dublin’s city centre streets are set to hit €4 an hour, bringing them on par with, or above rates for multi-storey carparks in the city.
• Taoiseach to raise LGBT rights with South Korean president: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will raise the issue of LGBT rights when he meets South Korea’s president Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday, following a constitutional court ruling upholding a ban on same-sex activity within the armed forces.
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• Ireland’s weather today: Friday will be a day of sunny spells and scattered passing showers, heaviest across Ulster and near west and southwest coasts. Quite breezy in moderate, occasionally fresh westerly winds, easing in the evening. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees.

The Best of Food Month

• 100 great restaurants, cafes and places to eat in Ireland: It has been an exciting year for openings, with 17 new restaurants hitting our list of Great Places to Eat in Ireland, all very good and very different, ranging from fine dining and neighbourhood bistros to a top-end omakase Japanese restaurant.
• Why isn’t Donal Skehan swigging from a jug of wine? Why isn’t there food all over his pristine white walls?: Why Isn’t Your Stupid Family Like This? began this week on RTÉ. RTÉ claims that the name of the show is actually Donal Skehan: Home Cook (Wednesday, RTÉ One), but you can tell what it’s really called.
• Grapevine restaurant review: Crowd-pleasing menu and keen prices make for a good neighbourhood spot: Just over two years ago, Dalkey famously was host to a certain Hollywood megastar and his unflashy SuperValu sack.
• The Irish Times Food and Drink Magazine is available with your newspaper today or as a supplement to the ePaper. You can signup for a digital subscrption here.

The Big Read

• Imogen Cotter happy to give pro cycling ‘one last crack’ after recovering from numerous setbacks: After nearly two years of trying, after long periods of injury and recovery, after progress interrupted by numerous setbacks, there was a point a few weeks ago where her patience finally ran out. Imogen Cotter had been badly injured in a training accident in January 2022. Hit by a car while training in Girona, Spain, she suffered multiple fractures, writes Shane Stokes.

Culture and Life & Style highlights

• Emer McLysaght: Matthew Perry spent millions on beating addiction, and we expect people to do it through stigma and willpower?: Matthew Perry’s death felt inevitable, didn’t it? It happens sometimes when a renowned person dies, and the world is familiar with their struggles. You shake your head and say to your friends, “it seemed inevitable”. And it’s not to write off the person’s life. It’s not to minimise their impact or make ghoulish predictions about those who battle with addiction or mental health issues. It’s just a mark of how, slowly but surely, we are developing more empathy and understanding of how self-destructive the body and mind can be.

Today's Business

• Agenda: Iceland pitches itself as a ‘digital suburb of Dublin’ in bid to secure data centre investments: The Blönduós data centre is one of three operated by Borealis Data Centre (Borealis) in Iceland, and is one of a growing number being set up in the Nordic country to take advantage of an electricity grid powered by 100 per cent renewable energy.
• Sam Bankman-Fried convicted of fraud over FTX’s collapse: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and money laundering by a New York jury late on Thursday in a landmark criminal verdict that is likely to condemn the former crypto tycoon to decades in prison and bolster US authorities’ attempts to bring an unruly financial sector to heel.

Top Sports news

• And the prize for the most recent display of tokenism towards women goes to France Football: There’s no good time to host an awards ceremony, but France Football magazine decided that the best time to stage the Ballon d’Or was during a busy set of women’s international fixtures. Naturally, some of women football’s elite did not turn up, as most of them had a match either that night or over the next two days.
• Ramla Ali might tire of the telling of her back story, but it’s a story like few others: Ramla Ali is tired of being asked about her back story. It’s been “talked about to death”, as she told the BBC this week. But, at the risk of being decked by the 34-year-old boxer, it’s so remarkable.
• Shamrock Rovers can celebrate but others still have work to do in league finale: Shamrock Rovers captain Ronan Finn will lead them out at Tallaght Stadium for the last time on Friday when they face Sligo Rovers before a post-match trophy presentation following their clinching a record-equalling fourth consecutive championship.

Martyn Turner

Letters to the Editor

Michael O’Leary welcomes paying vegans

Born leader Darragh Canavan bears the load of great expectations lightly

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Online shopping is undermining the traditional high street but high rates are killing shops

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Miriam Lord’s Week: Enda Kenny welcomes ‘our Nancy’ Pelosi with a baffling anecdote

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Defence Forces response to Libya training shows concern over reputational risk

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Sir, – Michael O’Leary earlier this year expressed his opinion in no uncertain terms on “veganism, rewilding and other eco loony nutjob campaigns”.

On a recent flight from Venice to Cork, I noticed vegan lasagne on the menu. It is reassuring to know he has no problem with paying vegans. We must be in a different category. – Yours, etc,

JOAN BURGESS, Cork.

Video & Podcast Highlights

• They killed Jason Corbett, but how much time will they serve

Review of the day

• Brendan O’Connor takes on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The result is captivating: In his career as a broadcaster and columnist, Brendan O’Connor (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday & Sunday) has been no stranger to quarrels. So, listeners can be forgiven for harbouring high expectations at the prospect of him squaring off against the Terminator.

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