Michael Higgins, the anti-Israel president of Ireland, once again called on the UN to intervene militarily in the war in Gaza to ensure the transfer of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip.
In an interview Saturday with Ireland’s public broadcaster RTE, Higgins described the Gaza war as a "tragic period" in the world's history.
Pointing to a UN-affiliated report released over the weekend that described "a famine epidemic" in Gaza city – findings of which Israel has rejected and criticized – he added that the war has reached "the realm of non-accountability." He said that Israel should suffer more serious consequences for what he repeatedly described in the interview as a "genocide."
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Michael Higgins, Ireland's president and UN internatioanl force
(Photo: Ryan Boedi / Shutterstock)
Higgins demanded international intervention to ensure aid delivery to Gaza residents, dismissing Israel’s efforts to allow humanitarian access through temporary local cease-fires and airdrops.
He said that a global reassertion of the importance of the General Assembly is needed, arguing that the assembly should guarantee humanitarian access.
He cited Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which authorizes only the Security Council to order military force to resolve global conflicts.
Higgins incorrectly claimed that the General Assembly could bypass the council. "If a certain proportion of the committee of the General Assembly supported it, even if the Security Council uses the veto to block it, the secretary general can call for a force to be put together to guarantee humanitarian access," he said.
Higgins recalled previous visits to Palestinian areas before the current war. “I have sat with people in tents in Gaza and in West Bank and elsewhere in one of my last visits. One of the things that moved me most was reading a medical report that showed that Palestinian children are more traumatized by the humiliation of their parents than by the death of either.”
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Ireland Dublin Saint Patrick's Day in March 2025, protesters waiving Palestine Flags
(Photo: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne)
This is not the first time Higgins has invoked Chapter 7. Earlier this month, after Hamas released a video showing hostage Evyatar David skeletal and emaciated, Higgins urged UN intervention and condemned Hamas for a "shocking act of cruelty and reflects not only on those responsible for such actions but damages any cause to which they (Hamas) attach themselves."
He also highlighted what he called widespread famine in Gaza. “We are now in a position of seeing the nadir of human behavior with images like these occurring at the same time as children are deprived of medicine and mothers are deprived of water and the necessary means of addressing malnutrition as they watch their children die.”
Higgins argued that all of these actions, both in terms of Hamas and the humanitarian crisis, "must not just receive the opprobrium of the world, but must lead to practical actions that cannot wait until September to be addressed."
Higgins, 84, is nearing the end of his presidency after almost 14 years, while his successor will be elected in November.
While the Irish presidency is largely ceremonial, Higgins has been the country’s leading voice in a policy long hostile toward Israel, a stance that hardened into open confrontation since the outbreak of the Gaza war.
Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state in May 2024, and later that year Israel closed its embassy in Dublin.
More recently, the Irish government announced it would criminalize the import of goods from West Bank settlements.
Higgins himself drew heavy criticism from Ireland’s Jewish community in January after using a Holocaust Remembrance Day speech to attack Israel, prompting Jewish attendees who protested to be removed by force. Last month, the Irish government was also accused of remaining silent in the face of rising antisemitic violence in Ireland.