Israel’s ambassador to Ireland has said the conflict in Gaza “could be over tomorrow” if Hamas laid down their weapons.
Dana Erlich said Palestinian civilians were hostages of Hamas and they needed to be liberated. “Their aim is to perpetuate the poverty of their own people.”
Israel could not support any calls for a ceasefire until they saw the text of any agreement, she told Newstalk radio.
“When you say that we need a secession of all the aggressions in Gaza, you are right. 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. If Hamas lay down their weapons, if they released all the kidnapped, this can be over tomorrow.”
The threat of terror in the region would continue on all the borders “unless we stop it,” she said.
Ms Erlich's comments come after Hamas’ top leader travelled to Cairo on Wednesday for talks on the war in Gaza, part of a flurry of diplomacy aimed at securing another ceasefire and swap of hostages for Palestinian prisoners at a moment when Israel’s offensive shows no signs of slowing.
Hamas militants have been putting up stiff resistance, even as the Israeli army claims to be making great progress in eradicating them.
The visit to Cairo by its top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, came a day after Hamas fired rockets that set off air raid sirens in central Israel.
It was a show of strength after a 10-week war that has devastated much of northern Gaza, killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians and driven some 1.9 million, nearly 85 per cent of the population, from their homes.
Israel has called on the rest of the world to blacklist Hamas as a terrorist organisation, saying it must be removed from power in Gaza in the wake of its October 7th rampage across southern Israel that triggered the war.
Ms Erlich said Palestinian civilians were hostages of Hamas which was why the militant group had to be stopped. “This is not helping the Palestinian cause in any way. And we hear the outcry of the Palestinian people. What I'm surprised 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.
“Palestinians need help from Hamas. They need to be liberated from Hamas. 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.”
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. We're making everything in our power to make sure 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 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.”
When asked if 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. 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?
“We're doing everything in our 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.”
There were no victories in war, she said. “What we want is the same objective that we have said from October 7th when we realised the scale of this horrific atrocity, massacre. 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.”
