AROUND 40 IRISH citizens are in the besieged Gaza Strip awaiting help to evacuate.

As humanitarian workers call for urgent corridors to be established to allow supplies to flow in and residents to flee, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar met with French President Emmanuel Macron last night to discuss the two countries’ approach to evacuating citizens.

The Irish citizens in Gaza are either members of UN staff or dual citizens, according to the Taoiseach. 

Speaking to RTÉ News, Varadkar said that he and Macron discussed the need for humanitarian corridors as Israel continues to strike Gaza and essential supplies such as food, water, electricity and medicines run short.

“We also talked about our various citizens who are in Gaza and how we might assist each other in evacuating them if needs be,” the Taoiseach said.

“I think it’s fair to say that we have a shared view on the situation and how it might develop. We’re both very concerned about escalation and the situation getting worse and maybe spreading to the West Bank or Lebanon.”

Similarly, Executive Director of UNICEF Ireland Peter Power has warned that there is a “potentially catastrophic humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes”.

Power, who was the Minister of State for Overseas Development from 2009 to 2011, told RTÉ Radio One: “Gaza is completely enclosed and extremely densely populated. It relies on food, water, medicines.”

“Water is of increasing concern to UNICEF now. We have worked for years now in a desalinisation plant, just south of Gaza City,” he said.

“We’re very worried that lack of fuel will cause that to close down, we’re very worried that lack of fuel will close the hospitals down within the next 24 hours.”

He confirmed there are approximately 40 Irish citizens in Gaza.

“I know that there are diplomatic efforts underway through the Department of Foreign Affairs to try to extract Irish people to the southern crossing, if that crossing can be stabilised over the coming days.”

The US is in discussions to open Gaza’s Rafa border crossing to foreign nationals who want to flee, according to a senior US official said, as Israel prepares to commence a major offensive in the Strip.

“That is also something we discussed with Israel, something we continue to discuss with Egypt -— the importance of the Rafah crossing being open for American citizens and for foreign nationals of other countries who want to leave and have the right to leave,” the official said.

Meanwhile, fire along the Israeli-Lebanese border has intensified in the last week, prompting Israel to shutter the area to civilians.

Yesterday, a rocket hit the UN peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah attacks killed one person in Israel, the Israeli military said.

The Journal understands that eight personnel from the Irish Defence Forces who were at the camp are safe and accounted for.

That rocket that hit the UN base is thought to have been a misfired Hezbollah rocket fired from close to the city of Tyre.

More than 10 people have been killed in Lebanon and at least two in Israel in the past week. Among those killed in Lebanon was a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah.

Additional reporting by AFP