Israel's bombardment of Rafah 'a slaughter of innocents', says Coveney

Palestinians inspect the damage to residential buildings where two Israeli hostages were reportedly held before being rescued during an operation by Israeli security forces in Rafah. Picture: AP Photo/Fatima Shbair 

Israel is behaving "like a monster to defeat a monster", Simon Coveney has said.

Speaking as he arrived for Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, the Enterprise Minister said that while the October 7 Hamas attack was a terrorist one and that Israel has a right to defend itself, the bombardment on Rafah is not acceptable, calling it "a slaughter of innocents".

"Where we are now is we are witnessing Israel behaving like a rogue state, quite frankly. They're ignoring the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They seem now to even be ignoring their closest allies in countries like the United States and the UK, who are clearly calling for restraint, looking for the basis of a ceasefire, or wanting to work with Israel to bring an end to this savagery that is continuing in Gaza."

Last month, the ICJ ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by the plaintiff South Africa.

At least 164 more Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours as Israel continues its onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, the territory's Health Ministry said on Monday.

The death toll in the attacks has reached 28,340, along with 67,984 others wounded.

The military campaign has also led to massive displacement, destruction and shortages of food, water and shelter.

Mr Coveney said the international community needed to be stronger on the issue of Gaza and pushed Israel's allies to be more insistent that the attacks on civilians in Gaza must end.

"The truth is that the European position has effectively moved towards the Irish position, you know, over the last number of weeks. There are very few countries now not calling for a ceasefire," he said.

Simon Coveney. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie

"There are very few countries now not wanting to put pressure on Israel to pull back and look for a peace agreement that can prevent soldiers moving into a city that has one and a half million people in it and it's going to be impossible to avoid massive civilian casualties, yet again, in a small piece of land that's already seen 28,000 people dead over the last number of months.

"So actually, the Irish position has been an effective one."

Mr Coveney said that the Government has led the way on international calls for a ceasefire and said that Israel must not be allowed to continue its killing of civilians in response to the October 7 attack.

"I've been to the Gaza Strip on five or six occasions. The suffering in that area before this round of conflict was significant. But what we've seen in the last number of months must be unacceptable for the international community. You know, it is not acceptable effectively to behave like a monster to defeat a monster, which is what Israel is now doing. 

"Ireland has been using its voice internationally to try to build consensus within the European Union to stop this madness, and we need to continue to do that forcefully."

Mr Coveneny's comments come as the US and Jordan kept up pressure for a Gaza Strip ceasefire as senior mediators were to resume work on Tuesday on an Israel-Hamas truce agreement, with the threat of an Israeli ground offensive looming in Rafah.