LONDON

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Friday told the UN General Assembly that Gaza is facing “a catastrophe of the most monumental and consequential kind.”

Martin condemned Israel’s actions as an assault on humanity. “What is happening in Gaza cannot be justified or defended. It is an affront to human dignity and decency. It is an abandonment of all norms, all international rules and law,” he added.

Martin described hunger being weaponized: “Babies starving to death while aid rots at the border, people shot while desperately seeking food for their families.”

Quoting the UN commission’s recent findings, he said: “Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza -- genocide, the gravest of crimes in international law.”

“To do nothing is not neutrality. It is complicity,” he warned.

Ireland, he said, has acted by joining South Africa’s ICJ case, recognizing Palestine, banning goods from occupied territories and planning to bar entry to Israeli officials “instrumental in fomenting the unfolding disaster in Gaza.”

He called for three urgent steps: “an immediate ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid workers to Gaza.”

Martin also stressed that Hamas “must answer for its crimes” and can have “no role in the future governance of Palestine, but no crime, however heinous, can justify genocide.”

Turning to the West Bank, he denounced settler expansion and Israeli government backing, warning that the aim is “to render the possibility of a two-state solution impossible. It must not succeed.”

He concluded by urging the UN to stand firm. “Let this be remembered as a time when we reaffirmed our commitment to multilateralism, to the rule of law… let us never cease to promote social progress and better standards of life for all in ever larger freedom.”