Ireland and other European states implore Israel to drop its Gaza plan

Eleven-year-old Samir Muhammed Samir Zekut fighting for his life due to insufficient treatment after being seriously injured in an Israeli attack on a house in Sheikh Radwan, Gaza in May. Picture: Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu/Images 

Ireland has joined other European countries to write a letter imploring Israel not to expand the war in Gaza, stating that it would be a “flagrant violation of international law”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Friday that Israel would seek "the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip", as well as "Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip" and "the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority".