Statement by the Tánaiste on urgent need to end blockade and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza

The Madleen was an effort to get food and medicine to the starving people of Gaza; an unarmed civilian effort in the midst of devastation and catastrophic humanitarian conditions.

But it was much more than that; it was a powerful symbol of the urgent and essential need to end the blockade on humanitarian aid.

What the flotilla has highlighted is the urgent need for humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. What has happened is another effort by the Israeli authorities to stop the entry of aid. It should not fall to any small group of civilians to get aid into Gaza.

Ireland has consistently called on Israel to lift its blockade and allow unimpeded access of humanitarian aid at scale into Gaza, in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles.

The UN and humanitarian organisations must be allowed to work independently and do their job. It is a shame on the world and international community that people are starving in Gaza.

The question we should be asking today is not a debate about the merits or not of the flotilla but how it has come to this; that the world is turning a blind eye to starving children in Gaza.

ENDS

Press Office

9 June 2025