{"id":35790,"date":"2025-09-01T04:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T04:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35790\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T04:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T04:03:08","slug":"td-paul-murphy-to-join-aid-flotilla-to-gaza-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35790\/","title":{"rendered":"TD Paul Murphy to join aid flotilla to Gaza \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy<\/a> has said he had an \u201cobligation\u201d to join an international flotilla of aid-carrying boats hoping to break Israel\u2019s long-standing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The flotilla is heading to the region in an attempt to deliver food and other humanitarian supplies to a starving population. <\/p>\n

The first wave of the Samud Flotilla including Swedish environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg and Irish actor Liam Cunningham left Barcelona on Sunday with thousands of supporters gathering at the city\u2019s port to see off the boats with many waving Palestinian flags and chanting \u201cFree Palestine\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s not a war, it\u2019s a genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"SwedishSwedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and activists wave as their boat, part of a civilian flotilla aiming at breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip leaves the port of Barcelona, on August 31st Photograph: AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Mr Murphy is leaving Ireland later this week and travelling to the Tunisian capital of Tunis where he will join the humanitarian fleet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of this flotilla is to end the Israeli created famine in Gaza to open a humanitarian corridor to bring vital food and medical supplies,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know over 60,000 people have been killed and over 200 journalists have been assassinated to stop the truth getting out,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018I feel I have been forgotten\u2019: Palestinian has offer to study at UCD, but has been unable to leave GazaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He added that another goal of the flotilla was to \u201chighlight our own western governments\u2019 complicity. And while you have an Irish Government that correctly calls it a genocide, it refuses to act, tries to water down the Occupied Territories Bill and has refused to act in relation to the Central Bank, authorising the sale of Israeli war bonds, which are due to be extended on September 2nd.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the second flotilla Mr Murphy has joined having been previously on one in 2011 when he was an MEP. He was detained earlier this summer by the Egyptian authorities close to the Rafah crossing while on the Global March to Gaza. <\/p>\n

He told The Irish Times that he and all those taking part in the flotilla are \u201cfacing an equal risk\u201d on this occasion.<\/p>\n

He said it was unclear how the days ahead would unfold but noted that the first boats had been able to leave Barcelona without being sabotaged by the IDF, something he said had been considered a potential threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the possibility of attack at sea,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen drone attacks on boats just a few months ago.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also suggested that there was the \u201cpossibility of being kidnapped in international waters and brought into Israel and detained, which is what has happened to most people participating in the flotillas.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged there was \u201ca personal risk but compared to the horror in Gaza, it\u2019s nothing. It\u2019s absolutely nothing. I just think all of us have an obligation to do whatever we can with our positions to draw attention to what\u2019s happening and to build pressure on our own governments to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organisers of the flotilla have blamed global leaders for failing to put pressure on Israel to allow aid to pass after a global hunger monitor said part of Gaza was suffering from famine.<\/p>\n

Israel claims the blockade in place since 2007 is needed to halt the flow of weapons to Hamas and has described attempts to break it as a propaganda stunt\u201d. <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 63,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and it has plunged the region into a humanitarian crisis with much if it left in ruins. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy has said he had an \u201cobligation\u201d to join an international flotilla of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,3761,27795,6,3857,11,12,27796,15,16,5,27172,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-35790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-gaza-strip","13":"tag-greta-thunberg","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-liam-cunningham","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-paul-murphy","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}