The UN General Assembly should establish “a force to be put together to guarantee humanitarian access," Irish media reported Irish President Michael D. Higgins as saying on Saturday.
During an interview with Ireland’s public service broadcaster RTE, the president explained how the UN charter allows for the Secretary General to send armed forces out even if the Security Council vetoes the initiative.
“If a certain proportion of the committee of the General Assembly supported, even if the Security Council uses the veto to block it, the secretary general can call for a force to be put together to guarantee humanitarian access," he said.
"The main thing is, I think, for a global reassertion of the importance of the General Assembly,” he added.
"We are in the realm of non-accountability,” Higgins said to RTE. “And we are in an extraordinary moment where you have three members of (the Israeli) cabinet who are interested explicitly in illegality, but they're not worried about international law.”
"The other thing which is now proposed is, in fact, breaking the link between the West Bank and Gaza. The realm of unaccountability is the most dangerous threat to democracy.”
One of Europe’s biggest anti-Israelis
Higgins is a well-known anti-Zionist, and one of the first Western leaders to recognize a Palestinian state following the October 7 attacks, alongside Spain and Norway in May of 2024.
“Recognition is an act of powerful political and symbolic value,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said at a special news conference in Dublin in May 2024.
“It is an expression of our view that Palestine holds and should be able to vindicate the full rights of the state, including self-determination, self-governance, territorial integrity, and security, as well as recognizing Palestine’s obligations under international law,” he stressed.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.