Sean Keane

Pro-Israel social media influencer, @rachelmoiselle, puts up hurdles to expressing an opinion; if you haven't said something about x then you're a hypocrite to be saying things about y. She suggests to her followers that Irish people are "obsessively" anti-Israel. Yet she rarely comments specifically on the problematic actions of Israel. To use her own standard; one shouldn't comment on Irish people's views on Israel unless you has offered an opinion on the list I've put together below. Matters that Rachel has been mostly silent on. Matters that don't get discussed in Tel Aviv, sipping cocktails. Matters that you won't hear on a curated Hasbara tour of Israel. Yet they are matters that cannot be avoided if you are to offer an opinion that Irish people's criticism of Israel is "obsessive" or "extreme". So before one says about Ireland that "a profound evil has gripped this country" or that they are "profoundly ashamed to be Irish" perhaps they could deal with the issues that disturb many Irish people, namely: THE DEATH TOLL 1. Over 72,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since Oct 2023, with 171,000+ injured. These are the numbers that have been counted. Thousands more remain under rubble, uncounted. 2. Over 21,000 of the dead are children. That's more children killed than in any other conflict tracked by the UN in the same period. Tens of thousands more have life-changing injuries incl. amputations performed without anaesthesia. 3. 81% of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed. Neighbourhoods, away from combat zones, bulldozed. This isn't collateral damage. It's uninhabitability by design. STARVATION AS A WEAPON 4. Before the war, around 500 trucks entered Gaza daily. Israel cut that to an average of 30. It blocked piped water, cut fuel to desalination plants, imposed a 130-day total fuel blockade & destroyed the local food production system. By late 2025, 1.6 million people (77% of Gaza's population) were in food crisis or worse. Over 500,000 were in "Emergency" food insecurity, one step below famine. A peer-reviewed Lancet study of nearly 220,000 children found 54,600 acutely malnourished, with rates reaching 30% in Gaza City. 5. When a US-funded food monitoring body (FEWS NET) issued a famine warning for northern Gaza in Dec 2024, the US government pressured them to retract it. Kenneth Roth, former HRW director, said it "sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations to interfere." Netanyahu's office called a later famine finding a "modern blood libel." Meanwhile within the data there were children starving. 6. Over 101,000 children under five suffered acute malnutrition. 31,000 of them severe cases with high mortality risk. Babies have died of hypothermia in winter because shelter, fuel & blankets were blocked. Polio has re-emerged. At least 151 children have died directly from malnutrition; 80% of all starvation deaths were children. 7. The "Flour Massacre" of Feb 29, 2024: thousands of starving Palestinians queued for aid trucks. Israeli tanks & snipers opened fire, killing at least 118 & injuring 760+. Israel claimed a "stampede." Hospital doctors documented gunshot wounds to the head, neck & upper body. 8. Between May & August 2025 alone, 1,857 Palestinians were killed while trying to get food. People will risk being shot trying to reach an aid truck if the alternative is watching their children starve. 9. Israel demanded biodata on all aid workers from 37 international organisations including MSF & Oxfam. Those who refused were banned. Over $50 million in food, medicine & shelter sat blocked at crossings while children starved on the other side. ATTACKS ON HOSPITALS & MEDICS 10. By early 2026, zero hospitals in Gaza were fully functional. Out of 36, only 17 were partially operating. The WHO documented 735 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, killing 917 people & damaging 125 health facilities. 11. Between 1,580 & 1,722 healthcare workers were killed in Gaza between Oct 2023 & mid-2025. That's an average of two medical professionals killed every single day for nearly two years. 12. Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopaedics at Al-Shifa, stayed to treat the wounded. He was arrested, stripped & taken to Ofer Prison. Four months later he was dead. A fellow prisoner saw him dragged into the yard, naked from the waist down, bleeding & unable to stand. Israel has withheld his body for over a year. 13. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, paediatric director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was detained in Dec 2024. He refused to abandon critically ill patients & premature infants. By early 2026, UN experts confirmed he'd been subjected to severe torture, starvation & massive weight loss. He remains held without charge. 14. Five-year-old Hind Rajab was trapped in a car surrounded by six dead family members, killed by tank fire. She stayed on the phone with the Red Crescent for hours. Two paramedics were sent to rescue her, after getting military clearance. Their ambulance was hit by a tank round. All three died. Forensic analysis found 335 bullets were fired at the car from 13-23 metres away. She was 5 years old. 15. In March 2025 in Rafah, Israeli forces targeted five ambulances & a fire truck "one by one." The bodies of 15 aid workers were later found in a mass grave. Shot at close range in the head & chest, some with hands or feet bound. WHAT THEY'RE DOING TO CHILDREN 16. Over 1,500 Palestinian children have been detained since Oct 2023. They are subjected to the same "torturous environment" as adults: starvation, beatings, sexual harassment & psychological abuse. Some returned to Gaza severely traumatised & completely alone, unable to find surviving family. 17. Israel systematically prosecutes Palestinian children in military courts, 500 to 700 every year. Children are taken in night raids, blindfolded, bound with zip ties, beaten in transit & interrogated without a parent or lawyer present. The conviction rate is near 100%, based almost entirely on coerced confessions. 18. 765,000 children in Gaza are completely out of school. The UN warns that prolonged exposure to extreme violence, grief & deprivation is fundamentally altering the brain development of an entire generation. TORTURE AS STATE POLICY 19. A UN Special Rapporteur reported that torture of Palestinian prisoners has become "state doctrine." Methods documented include rape with objects including rifle barrels, genital electric shocks, setting dogs on detainees, starvation & prolonged shackling until bone was exposed, requiring amputations. 20. Over 18,500 Palestinians have been detained since Oct 2023, with 9,245 still in custody. 3,358 are held under "administrative detention": indefinitely, without charge, based on secret evidence neither they nor their lawyers can see. Over 4,000 are "enforced disappearances." The Red Cross has been denied access. Those detained without charge should be considered as Palestinian hostages. 21. Of 59 journalists released from Israeli custody, 58 reported being tortured. Two reported being raped. 22. At Sde Teiman detention facility, soldiers raped a Palestinian detainee so violently he required emergency surgery for life-threatening rectal injuries. When military police came to investigate, right-wing mobs, including sitting members of the Knesset, stormed the base & physically attacked the investigators. Soldiers were charged with "severe physical assault" only. No rape charges, despite medical evidence. Even those charges were later dropped. 23. Israeli soldiers have routinely filmed themselves breaking into Palestinian homes, rummaging through women's underwear, displaying it as war trophies & posting it online with sexualised, degrading commentary. No disciplinary action. HOW THE IDF CONDUCTS THIS WAR 24. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American surgeon, volunteered in Gaza in 2024. He told CBS News that IDF snipers were deliberately shooting children: "No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by 'the world's best sniper.'" He said 70-75% of his surgical patients were elementary school age or younger. Over 20 American doctors corroborated this. Prof Nizam Mamode, a retired NHS transplant surgery lead, gave evidence to the UK Parliament that after bombings, Israeli drones would descend & "pick off" injured children on the ground. He told MPs: "I was operating on children who would say: 'this quadcopter came down & hovered over me & shot me.'" The youngest child he operated on was three years old. 25. A Haaretz investigation found soldiers described a "kill zone" in the Netzarim corridor where anyone who crosses an unmarked line is shot. A battalion commander ordered: "Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist, no exceptions, no civilians." Of 200 reported "militants" killed, only 10 were confirmed Hamas members. At least 224 were killed near the "Yellow Line" during the ceasefire, many of them women & children. 26. Israel used AI systems called "Lavender" & "Where's Daddy?" to generate a kill list of 37,000 people. Human operators spent ~20 seconds per target as a "rubber stamp." "Where's Daddy?" tracked targets to their family homes at night, then bombed them with unguided "dumb bombs," killing entire families. The pre-authorised civilian casualty threshold was 15-20 per low-ranking target, over 100 per senior target. Reported by +972 Magazine from six intelligence officer testimonies. 27. In April 2025, Breaking the Silence (an Israeli veterans' organisation) published testimony from dozens of soldiers describing orders to "deliberately, methodically & systematically annihilate" everything within a buffer zone consuming 16% of Gaza. The kill order: "Adult, male, kill. Shoot to kill." Soldiers were briefed there was "no civilian population" & all remaining Palestinians were "terrorists." 28. The IDF systematically used Palestinian civilians as human shields, codenamed "the mosquito protocol." Detainees were dressed in IDF uniforms, had cameras strapped to them & were sent into suspected booby-trapped buildings first. An officer said: "Almost every platoon keeps a 'shawish'... We operate a sub-army of slaves." The AP confirmed the practice was systemic. The Israeli Supreme Court had previously banned the identical practice under a different name. 29. In the first six weeks alone, Israel dropped nearly 600 US-made 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza. A Harvard study found one-third landed within lethal range of hospitals. A single 2,000-pound bomb has a lethal blast radius of over 350 metres. The UN said the use of such bombs on residential buildings, schools & refugee camps "raises serious concerns under the laws of war." 30. Human Rights Watch confirmed Israel used white phosphorus, which burns at 800°C & cannot be extinguished with water, over populated areas in both Gaza & Lebanon. A researcher mapped 248 white phosphorus strikes in Lebanon, 39% hitting civilian areas. As recently as March 2026, it was fired over homes in Yohmor. HRW called this "unlawfully indiscriminate." 31. The Washington Post verified over 120 videos of soldiers celebrating the destruction of homes, mosques & civilian infrastructure. One soldier destroyed 21 homes "to commemorate 21 Israeli soldiers." Approximately 1,000 soldiers were named in an ICC complaint based on footage they posted themselves. SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 32. Israel deliberately destroyed Gaza's maternity hospitals, neonatal wards & the territory's only IVF clinic. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women said the targeting of Palestinian women is deliberate & systematic. Women have been forced to undergo C-sections without anaesthesia, antibiotics or clean water. Maternal & neonatal death rates have skyrocketed. 33. Based on Gaza's birth rate & the overall death toll, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 pregnant women have been directly killed. This doesn't count those who died because there were no hospitals left to deliver their babies or because the ambulance that could have reached them had already been bombed. 34. Over 90% of Gaza's population has been forcibly displaced into overcrowded camps averaging 1.5 square metres per person. Women & girls have been stripped of all privacy & bodily autonomy. The collapse of societal structures has driven a rise in child marriage as a survival mechanism. SETTLER VIOLENCE, WITH STATE BACKING 35. Settler violence in the West Bank hit its highest daily average since records began in 2006. Settlers are armed, equipped & trained by the Israeli military. This isn't rogue actors. It's policy. 36. In April 2024, settlers rampaged through 11 villages over several days: 4 dead, 100 cars burned, thousands of animals killed. The military blocked ambulances from reaching the wounded. 37. Near Bethlehem in Aug 2024, settlers handcuffed two 15-year-old Palestinian boys, broke their legs & urinated on them. 38. During Eid al-Fitr in March 2026, settlers attacked 15-30 West Bank communities over multiple nights, burning homes, vehicles & fields. Israeli forces were present but largely did not intervene. 46 attacks documented in one week. ANNEXATION OF THE WEST BANK 39. 2024 was officially dubbed the "Year of Annexation & Expulsion" by Peace Now (an Israeli organisation). A record 24,258 dunams seized as "State Land." 68 new settlements approved in three years. Over 36,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced in 12 months. 40. In Feb 2026, Israel's Security Cabinet approved measures critics say amount to full annexation: legalising settler land purchases in Palestinian cities, opening land registries for settler organisations to claim properties & establishing 19 new settlements. 41. Israel created a "West Bank Heritage Authority" to use archaeology as a tool of land seizure, expropriating Palestinian land around ancient sites & designating 63 Palestinian archaeological sites as "Israeli heritage sites." 42. In East Jerusalem, 150 families in Silwan face eviction so Israel can build a biblical theme park called "King's Garden." Families who lived there for decades are being removed based on Ottoman-era land claims by settler organisations. APARTHEID IN THE WEST BANK 43. Human Rights Watch (2021), Amnesty International (2022) & the UN Human Rights Office (2026) have all independently concluded that Israel's treatment of Palestinians meets the legal definition of apartheid under the Rome Statute. 44. In the same territory, two different legal systems apply based on ethnicity. Israeli settlers live under civil law with full rights. Palestinians live under military law, with military courts, military judges & near-zero due process. 45. Palestinians in Area C are systematically denied building permits. Between 2009 & 2018, just 98 permits were approved out of 4,422 applications. Structures built without permits are demolished. 1,773 Palestinian structures were demolished or ordered demolished in the latest reporting period. 46. Segregated road networks link settlements to each other & to Israel, many accessible exclusively to settlers. Palestinian communities are cut off from one another, from work, schools & hospitals. Palestinians need military-issued permits just to move through their own land. ETHNIC CLEANSING OF SOUTHERN LEBANON 47. Israel's Defence Minister publicly stated that ALL homes in Lebanese border villages will be demolished "in accordance with the model used in Rafah & Beit Hanoun in Gaza." This is ethnic cleansing as a stated policy. 48. Over 1.2 million Lebanese people, 20% of the population, displaced. Over 600,000 residents explicitly told they will NOT be allowed to return. The condition for return is "guaranteed security" with no criteria & no timeline. That's indefinite ethnic cleansing by definition. 49. Israeli forces killed 3 Indonesian UN peacekeepers, hit a hospital near Tyre for the 5th time & killed 3 journalists covering the war. HRW called it potential war crimes. The term "Gaza model" is being used by Israeli officials themselves. THE WAR ON IRAN 50. On April 1, 2024, an Israeli airstrike destroyed Iran's consular annex in Damascus, killing 16 people. Legal experts widely condemned this as a violation of the inviolability of diplomatic & consular premises under the Vienna Conventions. 51. The US-Israeli campaign on Iran in 2026: Reuters reported more than 1,900 dead & at least 20,000 injured, with up to 3.2 million displaced. Strikes hit desalination plants, oil refineries & universities, and a single strike killed 180 girls in a school. UN experts condemned it as "flagrant violations of international law." WHAT ISRAELI LEADERS SAY 52. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, announcing the total siege of Gaza in Oct 2023: "We are fighting human animals & we are acting accordingly." 53. President Isaac Herzog, Oct 2023: "It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved." The ICJ later cited this when ordering Israel to prevent & punish incitement. 54. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the village of Huwara to be "wiped out" & said "the State of Israel should do it." He also declared: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people." 55. Heritage Minister Eliyahu, asked if dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was an option: "That's one way." MK Kallner posted: "Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948." MK Kroizer declared from the Knesset podium: "In Jenin, there are no innocent civilians. In Jenin, there are no innocent children... Even if the collateral damage is children or women, it does not matter to me." Smotrich & Ben-Gvir both called for "voluntary emigration" of Gazans & resettlement by Israeli settlers. WHAT ISRAELI SOCIETY ACTUALLY THINKS 56. In Jan 2024, 88% of Jewish Israelis said Palestinian casualties were justified. 43% said the IDF was using *too little* firepower. 75% opposed a US request to reduce heavy bombing in densely populated areas. 57. By March 2025, Tel Aviv University found 61.8% of Jewish Israelis supported forcibly evacuating Palestinians from Gaza, even by military means. 71% supported "incentivising" Palestinians to leave. 70% said if they left, they should never be allowed back. 58. A JPPI survey found over 80% of Jewish Israelis supported Trump's Gaza relocation plan in theory or practice. Only 3% called it immoral. 59. 64% of Israelis agreed there are "no innocents in Gaza." 79% of Jewish Israelis said they were "not troubled" by reports of famine & suffering among Palestinians. 60. In one academic survey, 47% of Jewish Israeli respondents agreed that when conquering an enemy city, the IDF should "kill all its inhabitants," framed as acting like Joshua at Jericho. 61. Even in Pew's 2016 survey, before Oct 7th, before this war, 48% of Israeli Jews already agreed that Arabs should be "expelled or transferred" from Israel. 72% on the political right. INTERNATIONAL LAW: A CATALOGUE OF VIOLATIONS 62. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu & Gallant for crimes against humanity & the war crime of starvation. Some countries still refuse to execute them. 63. The ICJ issued provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent acts causing irreparable harm to Palestinians, ensure humanitarian access & prevent incitement. The court cited statements by Israeli leaders as evidence. Israel responded by intensifying operations. A hearing on the merits won't happen until 2027. 64. In July 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem & Gaza is unlawful & must end. It found Israel's settlement policy violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibiting transfer of the occupier's population into occupied territory. Israel has built over 200 settlements in defiance of this. 65. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment (Article 33). The total siege of Gaza, cutting food, water, fuel & electricity to 2.3 million people, is collective punishment by definition. So is the militarised "buffer zone" that has placed over 50% of Gaza off limits to its own population. 66. Deliberately using starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime under the Rome Statute (Article 8). Blocking humanitarian aid, destroying food production & restricting crossings to a trickle while a population starves is not a grey area. 67. Attacks on hospitals & medical personnel are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. The WHO has documented 735 such attacks in Gaza alone. Detaining doctors from within hospitals & rendering an entire healthcare system non-functional goes far beyond any claim of military necessity. 68. The forcible transfer of civilians is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute. Over 90% of Gaza's population has been displaced, many multiple times. In Lebanon, over 600,000 told they cannot return indefinitely. In the West Bank, 36,000 forcibly displaced in a single year. 69. Detention without charge violates the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights, which Israel has ratified. Subjecting detainees to systematic torture violates the Convention Against Torture, which Israel has also ratified. 70. Targeting journalists is a war crime. Five were killed in a "double-tap" strike on Nasser Hospital in Aug 2025 (22 killed in total). Israel claimed it was targeting a Hamas camera; Reuters proved the camera was theirs. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented this as the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history. 71. The transfer of settlement powers to a civilian minister, the Heritage Authority & the Security Cabinet's Feb 2026 measures are all designed to make the occupation permanent. The ICJ has ruled this occupation itself is illegal. Israel is instead deepening it. 72. Joint US-Israeli airstrikes assassinated Iran's Supreme Leader, a sitting head of state, in Tehran on Feb 28, 2026. The campaign struck civilian infrastructure including schools, universities & desalination plants across Iran. UN experts called these "flagrant violations of international law" that set a precedent of "total impunity." We are not "obsessive." We are recognising exactly what we're looking at. The seizure of land & replacement with settlers. The weaponisation of food. The demolition of homes to make way for the coloniser. The military courts with predetermined outcomes. The criminalisation of children. The torture ... amongst other things. The impunity. If you call this an "obsession," what you're really saying is: "I find your moral clarity inconvenient." Every day multiple abhorrent transgressions are carried out by Israel from the above various categories. Each with their own daily victims. When we call out Israel's actions in the strongest of terms, as is warranted, we should not be accused of obsession, hysteria or indeed antisemitism and, importantly, we should not be accused of contributing to antisemitism. Calling out Israel's actions is not only right but it is our moral responsibility.