Israeli Ambassador says Gaza conflict could end 'tomorrow' if Hamas lays down its arms

Israel's Ambassador to Ireland Dana Erlich said: "We need Hamas to lay down their weapons. And this is what we need the entire world to say. This is not just a ceasefire." File picture

Israel’s Ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, has said that the conflict in Gaza “could be over tomorrow” if Hamas laid down their weapons.

Speaking this morning, Ms Erlich said that Israel could not support any calls for a ceasefire until they saw the text of any agreement. “When you say that we need a secession of all the aggressions in Gaza, you are right," she said. 

"We need Hamas to lay down their weapons. And this is what we need the entire world to say. This is not just a ceasefire." 

Ms Erlich said that if Hamas lay down its weapons and released those who it had kidnapped "this can be over tomorrow.”  Palestinian civilians were hostages of Hamas, she said, and they needed to be liberated from the group. 

“This is not helping the Palestinian cause in any way. And we hear the outcry of the Palestinian people. 

"What I'm surprised about is that we don't hear that outcry from the UN organisations. 

We don't hear that outcry from people here in Ireland who are so supportive of the Palestinian cause. 

"We see what they're doing in schools, in hospitals. We see the abuse, the international aid going in. So, yes, they need liberation from Hamas.” 

International aid

When asked what abuse there was of international aid, the ambassador said there was no guarantee that when the trucks go into Gaza that the aid is going to the civilian population.

“We've opened the Kerem Shalom Crossing to make sure that more and more trucks of aid go in. There are hundreds of trucks going in," she said.  

"We're making everything in our power to make sure of that. And you see the trucks lining up to get into Gaza. What we also see is Hamas terrorists on those trucks firing at people who try to take that aid. And we are not sure that it's getting to the actual population.” 

Ms Erlich said that the leaders of Hamas were "sitting in other countries" with a net worth of billions of dollars while their population was starving.

“Their aim is to perpetuate that poverty. They're not giving that aid to the population. What happens right now in Gaza is a tragedy and we should all work together to resolve it for the benefit of the Palestinian people. But letting Hamas off the hook, this is not the way to help the Palestinian people.” 

Israeli response

Pressed on whether the Israeli response had been disproportionate, she said: “We didn't start this war. Every person getting killed is a tragedy not just from our end, but from the Palestinian side. And in Gaza, we don't have the actual numbers. And unfortunately, we may never know the actual numbers because the numbers we are getting are by the Hamas-led Ministry of Health.

“But what we do know, that this can stop tomorrow if Hamas stops," she told Newstalk's Pat Kenny Show. 

"But they're so embedded within their population, within hospitals, within schools, within mosques, the fact that they're not letting their people evacuate, the fact that in everywhere, even underneath the humanitarian zone, we found one of the biggest tunnels. 

"Just imagine all of that infrastructure, all of that money, if they would have been invested in their own population and not in terror.” 

The Palestinian people are helpless from Hamas, she added, but the international community is not. 

And the Irish people who are so vocal about it are not. Where is the outcry for what Hamas is doing? How is this protecting Palestinians when we don't hold Hamas accountable for what they're doing?

Ms Erlich claimed Israel was doing everything in its power to make sure civilians are not hurt. 

"But the use of drones is to make sure that it's as surgical as possible under the rules of law. All of it is tragic. Any person getting killed is tragic," she said. 

She said there were no victories in war.

“What we want is the same objective that we have said from October 7th when we realised the scale of this horrific atrocity, massacre," she added. 

"We want our kidnapped back. We want our borders safe and we want to eliminate the threat of Hamas. So this is not about numbers or an equation that you can make, because all of it, when you look at it, this is tragic. It needs to be stopped.”