If Irish political leaders from Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats want to speak about justice, human rights and moral responsibility, then they should be willing to condemn all terror, including Hamas’s terror against Palestinians, with the same force.
For years, too many people including members of Sinn Féin have labelled the present Hamas as “freedom fighters,” as if brutality becomes noble when it is wrapped in political language. But a new United Nations report makes the reality impossible to ignore: Hamas does not only terrorise Israelis. It terrorises Palestinians too.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has now documented a pattern of executions, torture, maiming and public punishment inside Gaza. This is not Israeli propaganda. This is not rumour. This is the United Nations describing Palestinians as “victims of all sides,” trapped between mass atrocities, repression and armed groups willing to rule through fear.
According to the report, the Commission identified 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence in Gaza during 2024–2025, resulting in at least 108 deaths and 384 injuries. The report says Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 incidents, including public executions and brutal punishments carried out in front of communities.
The details are horrific. Men were reportedly blindfolded and shot in public squares. Others were beaten with metal pipes. Bones were deliberately broken. Victims were kneecapped, maimed, humiliated and punished in ways designed not only to injure the individual, but to send a message to everyone watching: obey, or this could be you.
The UN report describes these acts as amounting to the “war crimes of murder and torture.” That sentence should stop everyone in their tracks.
Public executions are not justice. Beatings with metal pipes are not resistance. Breaking the bones of Palestinians in the streets of Gaza is not liberation. It is terror.
And it matters that these crimes were carried out publicly. The Commission itself expressed alarm at the “severity and public nature” of the violence. Public punishment is a political tool. It is designed to spread fear, silence dissent, intimidate rivals, and remind ordinary civilians that the armed men are in control.
This is the truth many Irish people have refused to face: Hamas’s cruelty is not reserved for Israelis. It extends to Palestinians living under its rule. Palestinians in Gaza have been used as human shields, denied political freedom, exposed to ruinous wars, and now, according to the UN’s own findings, subjected to executions and torture by Hamas-affiliated forces.
None of this reduces the suffering of civilians in Gaza. It explains part of it. Palestinians are not served by pretending Hamas is a heroic movement. They are betrayed by that lie.
The UN has now put more evidence on the record. The question is whether those who excused Hamas for years will finally listen.
There is no freedom in being dragged into a square and shot. There is no dignity in being beaten with pipes. There is no liberation in broken bones.
Hamas is not a movement of freedom. It is a movement of fear.
A genuine concern for Palestinian lives must include concern for Palestinians abused by Hamas. A genuine defence of human rights must condemn torture whether the victim is Israeli or Palestinian. A genuine commitment to justice must reject the fantasy that armed extremists become moral actors simply because they claim to speak for an oppressed people.
Hamas has shown the world what it is through its actions: massacre, hostage-taking, repression, torture and public executions. It has brought misery to both Israelis and Palestinians alike.
That is why the latest Dáil debate on Ireland’s fixtures against Israel should trouble anyone who cares about moral consistency. Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats pushed motions aimed at stopping the Ireland-Israel matches and seeking Israel’s exclusion from international sport, but the Dáil rejected those proposals after Government amendments stated that the fixture is a matter for the Football Association of Ireland, not Government. The amended motions passed by 81 votes to 68.
The FAI is now considering whether the October 4th fixture should go ahead in Dublin or be moved to a neutral venue, with Hungary reported as a possible alternative, subject to UEFA approval.
But the wider question remains: why is there such political energy devoted to isolating Israel from sport, while far less attention is paid to the UN’s own findings that Hamas-affiliated forces have executed, tortured and maimed Palestinians in Gaza?
If Irish political leaders want to speak about justice, human rights and moral responsibility, then they should be willing to condemn all terror, including Hamas’s terror against Palestinians, with the same force.
The Dáil vote at least recognised that sporting fixtures are not for Government to dictate, but the debate also exposed how often the crimes of Hamas are treated as secondary, even when the victims are Palestinians themselves.
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