Supporters of Palestine marched through Dublin city centre in their thousands on Saturday afternoon in a national demonstration calling for an immediate end to violence in the Gaza Strip.
Irish-Palestinian man Ibrahim Alagha, who had spent several weeks trapped in the enclave before escaping with his family earlier this week, joined the protest just hours after landing at Dublin Airport.
Addressing assembled demonstrators at Merrion Square, he said he felt it was his “duty” to attend the march.
“It’s amazing to be back here in Dublin and see all the proud and the lovely people here,” he said.
He said the current conflict in Gaza was comparable to the Nakba of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were violently displaced from their homes. He said his cousin was killed in an air strike on Khan Younis on Friday.
“I saw the starvation, the lack of food, water, energy and medical supplies. I’ve lived it all, I saw it all,” he said.
Mr Alagha, who is based in Blanchardstown, spent the majority of his time trapped in Gaza staying in a house outside of Khan Younis with up to 90 other people. “Our living conditions were horrible,” he said. “I saw the people around us, it was really difficult.”
He thanked the demonstrators, and the staff at the Irish Embassy in Cairo.
[ Irish citizens who fled Gaza conflict arrive in DublinOpens in new window ]
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald also addressed the demonstrators and called for the referral of Israel to the International Criminal Court.
“We are here to say to the world that the occupation, the apartheid, the human rights violations, the bombardment, the savagery, the obscenity, the ethnic cleansing must end,” she said.
“This long walk to freedom that is Palestine is our story too. We have a responsibly as people of conscience, as citizens of the world, to make sure that no Palestinian makes that walk alone. That is my pledge as a political activist, that is my pledge as a political leader.
“From Ireland, it must be heard loud and clear: that Israeli war crimes do not go unpunished, that [Binyamin] Netanyahu’s government will face international tribunals and the full wrath of the international community,” she added.
A number of other Opposition parties were represented at the march, including People Before Profit and the Social Democrats.
The march, organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee (IPSC), assembled at the Garden of Remembrance and moved through the city centre en route to Merrion Square. Demonstrators were led in various chants, including “ceasefire now”, and “free, free, Palestine”.
Zoe Lawlor, chair of the IPSC, said demonstrators were calling for the Government to “listen to the Irish people and take action”.
“The Irish Government has to sanction Israel. The impunity that Israel has been granted by the entire international community has brought us to this nightmare for Palestinians,” she said.
Earlier, protesters threw red paint at the offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on St Stephen’s Green. Gardaí confirmed on Saturday evening that they were investigating an alleged incident of criminal damage.
“Investigations are ongoing. No further information is available at this time,” a spokesperson for the force said.
Other demonstrators laid mock corpses at the entrance of the DFA’s offices during the march.
Fahmi Shihabi (33), a Palestinian man living in Wicklow, said the mock corpses represented the rising toll of civilian casualties in Gaza. “To give a visual representation. Many people, when they see it, they feel touched by it.”
The DFA confirmed that 24 Irish citizens and dependants were ultimately able to exit Gaza at the Rafah crossing to Egypt on Friday night, bringing to 50 the number assisted to leave in recent days.
It said only small numbers of Irish citizens and their dependants who have expressed a wish to leave remain in Gaza, and the department is in contact with them.
In Cork, more than 1,000 people attended a march for Gaza. Chair of the UCC staff Palestine solidarity committee Dr Donal Hassett told the crowd on Saturday that much of the media coverage of the Israeli attack on Gaza sought to explain it as either part of an age-old conflict or as a response to the Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7th.
“The first of these visions ignores the long history of diverse religious communities living alongside each other in the region, it absolves Europeans of their anti-Semitism that drove Jewish emigration and it obscures the vital role of the British colonial administration in paving the way for the expulsion of the Palestinians and the settlement of their land...
“The second narrative suggests that violence burst into the region with the Hamas attacks and atrocities on October 7th, as if Palestinians have not experienced both spectacular and structural violence at the hands of Israeli forces since 1948,” he said.
Meanwhile Cork County Council has unanimously backed a call for Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for both Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Ismail Haneya just as it did for the arrest of Vladimir Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Independent Cllr Liam Quaide said any fair-minded person had to condemn the atrocities and abductions committed by Hamas but what Israel had unleashed in response would only deepen cycles of hatred and violence in the Middle East.
Cllr Quaide made the call for ICC arrest warrants during a debate on a motion by Fine Gael Cllr Jack White where he had urged the Government to sanction the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich and condemn “the brutal Israeli forces violence on innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Cllr White said he disagreed with calls to expel the Israeli ambassador as Ireland needed to maintain diplomatic links with Israel given the plight of Irish citizens caught in the conflict in Gaza, but Ireland should show its strong disapproval for Israel’s actions by formally sanctioning the ambassador.
