PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins has said that “the blocking of essential food is criminal”, as a UN convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies waits to enter Gaza this evening. 

Speaking to The Journal on the sidelines of the UN’s World Food Forum in Rome, President Higgins noted that the UN World Food Programme was already looking after hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza before Israel told one million Gazans to flee the north of the densely populated area as it prepares for a ground invasion, and the situation has now deteriorated.

Higgins said the issue of opening the Rafah crossing into Gaza from Egypt “has been going on for a very long time”.

A deal to allow a convoy of 20 trucks to deliver aid to Gaza was brokered between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during Biden’s visit to Israel on Wednesday.

Biden later secured an agreement from Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi that he would reopen the Rafah crossing to allow the trucks to enter Gaza.

President Higgins said that there was “very strong opinion in Israel that wants Israel to stay within the realm of international law”.

He added that Ireland’s “position is a strong position” and the country’s “approach has always been in support of the right of Israel to exist”. He said he had spoken to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog twice in the past 12 months.

“So there are no binary choices here for people who really want peace in the region and people who want aid to go immediately, without delay, to those who need it, and also to be able to speak about the genuine, real aspirations of people,” President Higgins said.

“For example, if you say that you’re in favour of the two state solution, long ago, some of us were saying that that Palestinian state has to be contiguous, it has to be viable, it has to have status, it has to have access to the sea and so forth. And that is the basis of a conversation. But these conversations were allowed to to to lapse,” President Higgins said.

President Higgins is at the end of a five-day trip to Rome which included a private audience with Pope Francis and a meeting with Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella.

Earlier this week, President Higgins hit out at Israel’s actions in its war with Hamas, which began on 7 October when Hamas launched deadly attacks in Israel that have killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Authorities in the Gaza Strip have said 4,137 people have been killed and over 13,000 wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the Palestinian enclave.

After delivering a keynote address to the opening session of the World Food Forum on Monday, President Higgins told reporters that Israel had reduced the Geneva Convention to “tatters”.

Then yesterday, following a private audience with Pope Francis, President Higgins told reporters that Israel risks falling into the same “category” as Hamas.

Today, President Higgins used his keynote address to the closing session of the World Food Forum to call for global leaders to “tackle the vicious circle of global poverty and inequality, global hunger, debt and climate change”.

President Higgins calls for everyone to respond within their capacity to rise to the challenge of combating climate change. @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/t9CSK6YYgD

— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) October 20, 2023

He also criticised debts which are placed on developing nations and called for changes within the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

President Higgins also commended young people for being at the vanguard of efforts to tackle climate change” and called for them to be “participants” and not mere “attendees” at events such as these.

He added that women are the “most impacted victims of the food crisis” despite producing up to 80% of foodstuffs.

President Higgins said any efforts to combat global hunger must “prioritise the inclusion of women and girls who are more food insecure than men in every region of the world” by enshrining their right to land.

In addition to delivering a keynote address, President Higgins was also part of a panel discussion with youth activists.