Irish President Catherine Connolly said on Monday she was “proud” of her sister Margaret, who is in custody in Israel after participating in a flotilla to reach Gaza.
Catherine Connolly said this to journalists after visiting King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in London.
“I’m very proud of my sister but I’m also very worried about her,” Politico quoted the Irish president as saying. “I’ve been very busy today... I haven’t really had a chance to get details in relation to my sister and indeed, equally importantly, her colleagues on the boat,” she added.
Connolly is a far-left independent politician who has called Israel a “terrorist state” and has advocated for Hamas’s continued hold on power in Gaza.
Connolly, who has refused to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, has frequently commented on the “genocide” in Gaza, as she calls it, and criticized “atrocities” committed by Israel. She told BBC News Northern Ireland during her campaign last year that Hamas was “part of the fabric” of the Palestinian people.
Ireland is viewed internationally as one of the most anti-Israel countries in Europe, and Israel has accused the country’s former president Michael D. Higgins of being antisemitic.
Asked about Hamas in a BBC interview last month, Connolly said she was “reluctant to unequivocally condemn” the Oct. 7 attack, in which terrorists from Gaza murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostage.
“I come from Ireland, which has a history of colonization. I would be very wary of telling a sovereign people how to run their country,” Connolly said when asked whether Hamas should have a role in ruling Gaza.
"[Hamas] were elected by the people the last time there was an election. Overwhelming support for them back in 2006 or 2007. They are part of the civil society of Palestine. We’re reliant on them for figures in relation to the deaths,” she also said, referring to the death toll of the Israel-Hamas war.
In October 2021, Connolly asked Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney if “indicating support for the Jewish character of the Israeli state” meant his ministry “agrees with the treatment by Israel of Palestinian communities in its attempts to accomplish Jewish supremacy.”
The latest attempt to breach the Gaza maritime blockade is organized by the same Turkish group that was behind the 2010 MV Mavi Marmara flotilla. It is believed to be composed of more than 50 vessels, carrying 500 activists from 45 nations. Dozens of activists were arrested aboard several ships this week.
Jerusalem maintains that its naval blockade on Gaza, imposed on Jan. 3, 2009, is compatible with international law. It aims to prevent weapons, terrorists and money from entering or exiting the Gaza Strip by sea. Hamas terrorists seized power in Gaza in 2007. In 2023, Israel took control of about half of the Gaza Strip after thousands of Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 of that year. Hamas is believed to be in power in the remaining area.
