DUBLIN, May 2, 2025 (WAFA) – Ireland on Friday urged Israel to immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip as “unconscionable” suffering continues.
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza in over eight weeks as a result of the Israeli blockade. Children are starving. Hospitals are running out of basic painkillers," Simon Harris, the Irish Foreign Minister said in a statement.
Citing the World Food Program's warning that their food stocks are now depleted, he stressed that “life-saving aid is available and urgently needed, but trucks cannot get into Gaza.”
"It is unconscionable that the current suffering is continuing. This is the longest ban on aid entering Gaza since the start of the war," Harris said.
Describing the current situation as “unacceptable”, the Irish diplomat said that “in the current circumstances, obstructing life-saving aid is a violation of Israel’s international obligations.”
"Ireland calls on Israel to immediately lift the blockade and allow for unimpeded access of humanitarian aid," Harris stated.
Israel unilaterally ended the Gaza ceasefire agreement and resumed its aggression on the Strip on Tuesday, March 18, carrying out a wave of bloody airstrikes across the Strip and killing hundreds of Palestinians, including over 100 children.
The death toll reached at least 2,326 with 6,050 others wounded, according to medical sources. Emergency teams are attempting to recover victims still trapped beneath the rubble.
The aggression was resumed amidst concerns over the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Strip given the ongoing siege and ban on the entry of medical and humanitarian aid.
Israel has waged a military onslaught on the Strip since October 2023, killing at least 52,418 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 118,091 others.
Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
K.F.
