Thousands of people attended rallies in Belfast and Dublin on Saturday, with speakers calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The rallies, which have happened every week since Israel began its attack on the area following the October Hamas attack, come after an International Court of Justice interim ruling stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.
Protestors against the continuing Israeli military operations in Gaza, which have killed an estimated 25,000 people, including approximately 10,000 children, marched from Writer’s Square to Belfast City Hall.
The march was led by Jews for Palestine in Ireland with the key speaker being Jesse Reuben, a United States-based activist who is Jewish. Saturday was Holocaust Memorial Day.
Israeli forces have bombarded Gaza since after the Hamas-led October 7 attack on the country, killing more 1,200 people, including close to 800 civilians, 36 of them children. Close to 250 were taken hostage, with some released during a brief ceasefire in November.
The weekly protest in Dublin, with a march from the Garden of Remembrance to Leinster House, heard shouts of “louder, louder, say it more, no more violence, no more war” and “ceasefire now”.
The protests follow a ruling by the ICJ ordering measures to take place, for Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.
It also ordered Israel to preserve evidence of genocide and to submit a report to the court, within one month. The court said all hostages should be released.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin noted the court did not call for an immediate ceasefire but did order “the IDF not to commit any acts of genocide, and importantly has ordered Israel to take immediate and effective measures to ensure urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance are provided in Gaza”.
“I strongly welcome the Court’s orders which are final and binding. These are measures that Ireland has been consistently calling for from the start of this conflict,” Mr Martin said.
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said: “It sends a clear message that the world will not stand by in silence as Israel pursues a ruthless military campaign to decimate the population of the Gaza Strip and unleash death, horror and suffering against Palestinians on an unprecedented scale.”
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said the London government has “considerable concerns about this case” taken by South Africa, which it described as “not helpful in the goal of achieving a sustainable ceasefire”.
“We welcome the Court’s call for the immediate release of hostages and the need to get more aid into Gaza. We are clear that an immediate pause is necessary to get aid in and hostages out, and then we want to build towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to the fighting,” a spokesperson said.