{"id":57888,"date":"2025-09-11T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T18:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57888\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T18:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T18:54:07","slug":"fianna-fail-defend-jim-gavins-reference-to-israels-military-objectives-after-condemnation-from-sf-deputy-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57888\/","title":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il defend Jim Gavin’s reference to Israel’s ‘military objectives’ after condemnation from SF deputy leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il has defended its presidential candidate Jim Gavin<\/a> amid criticism of his description of Israel\u2019s \u201cmilitary objectives\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in deputy leader Pearse Doherty had called for Mr Gavin to clarify comments he made in an interview earlier this week when asked about the Occupied Territories Bill.<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin \u2014 a former member of the Defence Forces \u2014 referenced the \u201cmilitary objectives\u201d of the Israeli war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unconscionable that the bombing is still taking place when I believe that the military objectives have probably been reached for that military campaign,\u201d Mr Gavin said.<\/p>\n

Mr Doherty, who has not ruled himself out of challenging Mr Gavin for the presidency, wrote on social media: \u201cThis is a disgraceful way to talk about the brutal slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children! The forced starvation of an entire population! The destruction of Gaza! It\u2019s a genocide, Jim. Shameful comments that should be withdrawn immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Fianna F\u00e1il accused Sinn F\u00e9in of running a negative campaign.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said: \u201cIt is clear that Sinn F\u00e9in recognise what a strong candidate Jim Gavin is and is starting its negative campaign.<\/p>\n

\n Jim Gavin was a senior officer in one of the largest civil protection missions of the 21st century. His first reaction is always to focus on saving lives and that\u2019s what his short answer addressed.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cDeputy Doherty\u2019s statement is an example of the type of politics which causes so many people to be cynical. Jim Gavin is unequivocal in his condemnation of the Israeli government\u2019s genocidal actions. Hopefully this campaign will be spared this sort of fake outrage and cynical misrepresentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the comments on Thursday in Lucan, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said that he would not be \u201centering into a running commentary\u201d on the presidential campaign, which has six weeks to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me just say, at the outset of this presidential election campaign, what I\u2019m not going to do for the next number of weeks is provide a running commentary on every comment made by every presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what I will say is this; the situation in Gaza is clear. The Irish Government, the people of Ireland, have never equivocated in relation to this. It is a genocide. It needs to end. And we\u2019re seeing the slaughter of innocent civilians. We\u2019re seeing the starving of children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a man-made famine in 2025 and the Government \u2014 all parties of the Government, all parties in the Government \u2014 we\u2019ve been working together at every opportunity to voice that view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, officials said Israel would stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving in the north as the new offensive ramps up and preparations are made to order hundreds of thousands of people south.<\/p>\n

The UN and partners have said the pauses, airdrops and other measures fell far short of the 600 trucks of aid needed daily in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The Israeli offensive which followed the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks has killed more than 63,000, mostly civilians, and destroyed much of Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il has defended its presidential candidate Jim Gavin amid criticism of his description of Israel\u2019s \u201cmilitary objectives\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[27860,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-57888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-israel-palestine","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-presidential-election","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57888","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=57888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}