Tanaiste Micheal Martin visited the kibbutz where Irish kid Emily Hand was taken hostage as three more Irish citizens got out of Gaza last night.
Our Foreign Affairs Minister received assurances from his Israeli counterparts, including the President, Isaac Herzog, that "everything is being done" to secure the rescue of Emily from Hamas captivity. Today is the young girl's ninth birthday and it is her father, Dubliner Thomas Hand’s, wish that she gets released on her birthday weekend, the Irish Mirror reports.
In the meantime, friends and supporters will gather for a birthday celebration in St Stephen’s Green from 1pm until 3pm this afternoon. A spokesman for the Israel Embassy in Ireland said last night: "Emily will celebrate her 9th birthday in Hamas captivity. You are invited to a sad birthday."
Read more: Dublin family that fled Gaza for Ireland 'torn' to leave behind loves ones in warzone
Read more: Irish citizens escaping Gaza greeted by Tanaiste Micheal Martin
"There will be balloons, there will be a cake, but there will be no girl to blow out the candles, so we will all together make a wish for her - that she will return to us as soon as possible, safe and sound with all the hostages."
Mr Martin flew home last night after his whistle stop two-day tour of Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. It was considered a major diplomatic success with the Tanaiste there to secure the escape of at least 26 of an estimated 40 Irish citizens trapped in the Gaza war zone.
And Mr Martin left in optimistic form that "most" of the rest of our citizens would make it through the Rafah Crossing from Gaza to safety in Egypt "before the end of the weekend." Before he left, he spoke to RTE ’s Paul Cunningham where he expressed concern about the horrible violence on both sides.
The Foreign Affairs Minister slammed the Hamas actions of October 7 as "a savage, brutal attack" and he condemned the Israeli retaliations as "shocking," adding that there is a "danger" it would "radicalise future generations" of Palestinians.
Mr Martin said: "It is appalling what’s happening in terms of the loss of life in terms of civilians, in terms of children and innocent civilians.
"That’s why we believe there is an immediate need for a humanitarian ceasefire to enable aid to get in and to stop the death and destruction of so many Palestinians.
"In Kibbutz Be’eri, I think it was quite horrific, even though it’s been some weeks after the event itself.
"We witnessed an idyllic community because this was a collective community, working on the Kibbutz ethos and you could just try and picture people going through their normal daily lives, as I said there was a football on the edge, you could see people’s belongings as you looked into windows, the house we went into was completely burnt.
"And listening to some of the eyewitness accounts, this was a savage, brutal attack, really inhumane in a premeditated way."
He added: "There was a very clear communication back to us from the Israeli government, they’re very focused on the annihilation of Hamas.
"I would’ve said a military solution on its own isn’t going to resolve this.
"And there is a real danger that you’ll radicalise future generations, in terms of how this war is being prosecuted, because it’s not just on Hamas, it’s impacting to a shocking degree on the the civilian population of Gaza.
"Families have been destroyed, young people have been killed, children and so forth to an extraordinary degree in terms of sheer numbers and that will have an impact on people in future generations.
"So we’ve got to try and work, in my view, to try and demilitarise the situation overall and the international community do need to help and support a political roadmap eventually here.
"I sympathised on the loss of so many Palestinian lives and the huge suffering that the Palestinian people are currently going through."
Mr Martin also met with Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas.
He said about this meeting: "We stand ready to continue to support the Palestinian Authority... a lot of the conversation focused on how do we build a sustainable roadmap that ultimately could create some political future whereby people could live in harmony together.
"It’s easier said than done."
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