Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

 A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

 A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)

Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law".

The university's board informed students by email on Wednesday that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel".

The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law", said the email sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.

The taskforce was set up after part of the university's campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest at Israel's actions in Gaza.

Among the taskforce's recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities".

The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities".

Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an email.

The board also said that the university "should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation".

It "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel's participation in such collaborations," it added.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.

In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognizing Palestine as a "sovereign and independent state".

It then joined South Africa in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza -- charges angrily denied by Israeli leaders.

In December, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the country's embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland's "extreme anti-Israel policies".



Fragile Ceasefire Holding, Witkoff Says Peace Talks with Iran 'Promising'

People attend a gathering to support Iran's Armed Forces, after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 24, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
People attend a gathering to support Iran's Armed Forces, after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 24, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Fragile Ceasefire Holding, Witkoff Says Peace Talks with Iran 'Promising'

People attend a gathering to support Iran's Armed Forces, after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 24, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
People attend a gathering to support Iran's Armed Forces, after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 24, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

The ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump between Iran and Israel appeared to be holding on Wednesday a day after both countries signaled that their air war had ended, at least for now.

Each side claimed victory on Tuesday after 12 days of war, which the US joined with airstrikes in support of Israel to take out Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities.

Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said late on Tuesday that talks between the United States and Iran were "promising" and that Washington was hopeful for a long-term peace deal.

"We are already talking to each other, not just directly but also through interlocutors. I think that the conversations are promising. We are hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran," Witkoff said in an interview on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" show.

"Now it's for us to sit down with the Iranians and get to a comprehensive peace agreement, and I am very confident that we are going to achieve that," he added, according to Reuters.

Trump's administration told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that its weekend strikes had "degraded" Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the attack had removed the nuclear threat against Israel and he was determined to thwart any attempt by Tehran to revive its weapons program.

"We have removed two immediate existential threats to us: the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles," he said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country had successfully ended the war in what he called a "great victory," according to Iranian media.

Israel launched the surprise air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders.

Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites and cities.