People of Gaza ‘living hell on earth,’ says top Irish diplomat

BIRMINGHAM, England

Ireland’s Foreign Minister Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he hopes that work for a cease-fire can gain momentum for the sake of the “ordinary people of Gaza who are living hell on earth at the moment.”

Speaking to the press ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Monday, Martin acknowledged it would not be easy to get a unified position on Irish and Spanish proposals for the EU to review whether Israel was in breach of human rights clauses in the EU-Israel trade agreement.

A ground invasion in the city of Rafah would be “absolutely catastrophic,” he warned before joining the ministerial meeting.

The proposal to the European Commission was submitted last week in a joint letter signed by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Irish counterpart Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Any decision to suspend the deal, which underpins Israel’s heavy reliance on the EU for trade, would require the unanimous agreement of all 27 member states.

“It will be very challenging, and some will not agree with the Irish and Spanish position,” Martin said.

Some EU member states are blocking an EU agreement to sanction extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been violently driving out Palestinian residents of the occupied territory, he added.

“There's a moral pressure to articulate ... our situation that currently is the case in Gaza. That's the first thing. Secondly, Ireland favors sanctions on violent settlers in the West Bank. … I would hope we could get unanimity on that question, because what has been happening in the West Bank has been very provocative and has undermined the prospects of a two-state solution which everybody at the council agrees on.”

Martin says if the council fails to show a unified position, Ireland will act and impose unilateral sanctions along with some other member states that embrace the same position.

“The world is shocked” at the “level of inhumanity” within Gaza and “opinions have evolved” as well among EU foreign ministers with the “vast majority” now wanting an end to the violence, the Irish foreign minister said.