Riots in Dublin after stabbing near school – as police car and buses set on fire during ‘far-right’ protests
Police said a “complete hooligan lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology” was behind violent protests in Dublin after three young children were injured in a stabbing outside a primary school.
Rioters let off flares and fireworks at police as one of the children, a five-year-old schoolgirl, and a woman in her 30s, described as a “member of staff caring for her”, are being treated in hospital for serious injuries.
Officers with riot shields held back crowds in the city centre where a police car was set on fire amid anger over the stabbings in Parnell Square East.
A Luas tram and several buses were set on fire on O’Connell Street in the city centre and a bus and car were torched on O’Connell Bridge.
A police car has been set on fire during the disorder
Bus fire in Dublin
Sky News’ Ireland correspondent Stephen Murphy saw people looting a Foot Locker store in the city during the chaos. He also saw people smashing the front of an Asics store with metal bars.
Rioters attempted to kick and punch police and there were ongoing scuffles, with bottles being thrown.
A Garda public order unit was deployed to control the disorder.
Police believe stabbing was ‘standalone attack’
A suspect has been detained in relation to the stabbings and police have said they are not treating the attack as terror-related.
However, the force added they are not “ruling out any motive”.
In a press conference earlier, Superintendent Liam Geraghty told the media the five-year-old girl was receiving “emergency medical treatment” after the stabbings. He also said the stabbing spree appeared to be a “standalone attack”.
A five-year-old boy, a six-year-old girl and a man in his 50s were treated in hospital for less serious injuries, SI Geraghty said. The boy was later discharged from the Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin Hospital.
Protesters faced off with police after the stabbing
People urged to ignore ‘misinformation’ after ‘serious violence’
Following the rioting, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has told journalists outside Mountjoy Garda Station: “I think there’s disgraceful scenes in terms of a major investigation, the maintenance of a scene and the gathering of evidence.
“We have a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology, and also then this disruptive tendency engaged in serious violence.
“We are drafting in resources to deal with that and that will be dealt with properly. I’ve given full direction to our resources here in respect of making arrests and bringing offenders to justice.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure that we police the streets, and part of that is we ask people to act responsibly and not to listen to the misinformation and rumour that is circulating on social media.
“The facts are being established, but the facts are still not clear on a lot of the rumour and the innuendo is being spread for malevolent purposes.”
Chief Superintendent Patrick McMenamin described the violent protests as “gratuitous thuggery”.
He said 400 officers were involved in the police response to the protests at the height of the operation, and that some officers were assaulted during the incident.
However, he said there were no reports of any serious injuries being suffered by officers and no reports of serious injuries made by members of the public.
Mr McMenamin said Dublin city centre was “now calm” and “returning to normal”, but that police would “continue to monitor” the situation.
The Rotunda Hospital, a maternity facility located near the site of the stabbing, urged people not to travel to the hospital “unless necessary” while the protests were ongoing.
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Dublin: Girl, 5, among those attacked
‘Thuggish and manipulative element’ blamed for riots
In a statement, Irish justice minister Helen McEntee said: “The horrific attack today in Dublin city centre was an appalling crime that has shocked us all.
“An Garda Siochana are following a definite line of inquiry and are not looking for anyone else regarding this crime. The perpetrator will be brought to justice.
“However, the scenes we are witnessing this evening in our city centre cannot and will not be tolerated.
“A thuggish and manipulative element must not be allowed use an appalling tragedy to wreak havoc.”
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Stabbing near school in Dublin
Irish President Michael D Higgins said after the stabbings and rioting: “All of our thoughts are with each of the children and their families affected by today’s horrific attack outside Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire in Dublin city centre.
“We are particularly thinking of the five-year-old girl and the member of staff caring for her who are both in serious condition in hospital.
“All of our prayers are with each of them for a full recovery… This appalling incident is a matter for the Gardaí and that it would be used or abused by groups with an agenda that attacks the principle of social inclusion is reprehensible and deserves condemnation by all those who believe in the rule of law and democracy.”
‘Eyewitnesses played a huge role’ in stopping stabbing
Sky’s Murphy said witnesses have told police they saw a man, who was reportedly wielding a knife, “attack several young people” as they left school during the stabbings earlier.
The school is an Irish-speaking primary school where all students would do lessons in Irish.
“It appears that bystanders and eyewitnesses have played a huge role in bringing this incident to a halt,” Murphy said.
“Witnesses have spoken of seeing several bystanders become involved to try and intervene and restrain this man.”
One man, a Deliveroo driver, told Irish media how he hit the alleged attacker with his motorcycle helmet.
“I didn’t even make a decision, it was pure instinct, and it was all over in seconds,” Caio Benicio told The Journal.
“He fell to the ground, and other people stepped in.”
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Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Ireland’s opposition party Sinn Fein and a representative of Dublin Central, told Sky News: “The community is numbed and horrified.
“This is the last thing you expect to happen on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of Dublin city.
“It’s a great school community and people’s hearts are with the children who have been traumatised and those who have been injured.”
In a post on social media website X, Ms McDonald also named the school affected as Gael Cholaiste Mhuire.
Hamas has said it is ready to cooperate with a request to deliver food to Israeli hostages in Gaza, if Israel agrees to permanently open a humanitarian corridor into the enclave.
The militant group’s statement comes amid international outcry over two videos it released of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, who it has held captive since 7 October 2023.
The now 24-year-old looks skeletal, with his shoulder blades protruding from his back.
The footage sparked huge criticism, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas labelling the videos “appalling” and saying they “expose the barbarity of Hamas”.
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Video released of Israeli hostage
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had asked the Red Cross to give humanitarian assistance to the hostages.
Hamas’s military spokesperson Abu Obeidah said it is “ready to engage positively and respond to any request from the Red Cross to bring food and medicine to enemy captives” if certain conditions are met.
These are that Israel must permanently open a humanitarian corridor and halt airstrikes during the distribution of aid, he said.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday that six more people had died of starvation or malnutrition in the enclave in the past 24 hours.
This raises the number of those who have died from what multiple international agencies warn may be an unfolding famine to 175 since the war began, the ministry said. This includes 93 children, it added.
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Baby Zainab starved to death in Gaza
No aid entered Gaza between 2 March and 19 May due an Israeli blockade and deliveries of supplies including food, medicine and fuel have been limited since then.
Israeli authorities have previously said there is “no famine caused by Israel” – and that its military is “working to facilitate and ease the distribution of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip”.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health authorities also said at least 80 people in Gaza were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Sunday.
These included people trying to reach aid distribution, Palestinian medics said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has repeatedly said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians” and has previously blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.
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Hamas killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in its attack on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
We’ve seen this many times before.
Highly anticipated talks and meetings with America, Israel’s closest ally and the one country with the power to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course, then nothing changes.
We need to give Steve Witkoff time to report his assessments back to the White House before we can give a complete verdict on this visit but what we’ve seen and heard so far has offered little hope.
The pressure on Donald Trump to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is mounting after a small but vocal contingent of his base expressed outrage.
Even one of his biggest supporters in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green, has referred to it as a genocide.
It was little coincidence Mr Witkoff was dispatched to the region for the first time in three months to speak to people on both sides and “learn the truth” to quote US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who accompanied him to an aid site in Gaza.
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Gaza nurse: ‘We’re rationing care’
The pair spent five hours in Gaza speaking to people at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation centre and it’s understood saw nothing of the large crowd of Palestinians gathering a mile away waiting for food.
Their sanitised tour of Gaza did not include a visit to a hospital where medics are receiving casualties by the dozen from deadly incidents at aid sites, and where they’re treating children for malnutrition and hunger.
A critical trauma nurse at Nasser hospital told us a 13-year-old boy was among the people shot while Mr Witkoff was in the enclave.
An American paediatrician at the same hospital who had publicly extended an invitation to meet with Mr Witkoff heard nothing from the US delegation.
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Dr Tom Adamkiewicz described people “being shot like rabbits” and “a new level of barbarity that I don’t think the world has seen”.
The US delegation was defensive of the controversial GHF aid distribution that was launched by America and Israel in May, hailing its delivery of a million meals a day.
But if their new system of feeding Gaza is truly working, why are we seeing images of starved children and hearing deaths every day of people in search of food?
The backdrop of this trip is very different to the last time Mr Witkoff was here.
In May, life was a struggle for Palestinians in Gaza, people were dying in Israeli bombings but, for the most part, people weren’t dying due to a lack of food or getting killed trying to reach aid.
Mr Netanyahu’s easing of humanitarian conditions a week ago, allowing foreign aid to drop from the sky, was an indirect admission of failure by the GHF.
Yet, for now, the US is standing by this highly criticised way of delivering aid.
A UN source tells me more aid is getting through than it was a week ago – around 30 lorries are due to enter today compared to around five that were getting in each day before.
Still nowhere near enough and it’s a complex process of clearances and coordination with the IDF through areas of conflict.
Lorries are regularly refused entry without explanation.
Then there was Mr Witkoff’s meeting with hostage families a day later where we began to get a sense of America’s new plan for Gaza.
The US issued no public statement but family members shared conversations they’d had with Mr Trump’s envoy: bring all the hostages home in one deal, disarm Hamas and end the war. Easier to propose than to put into practice.
Within hours of those comments being reported in the Israeli media, Hamas released a video of hostage Evyatar David looking emaciated in an underground tunnel in Gaza.
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Video released of Israeli hostage
Now 24 years old, he was kidnapped from the Nova festival on 7 October and is one of 20 hostages understood to be still alive. The release of the video was timed for maximum impact.
Hamas also poured water on any hopes of a deal in a statement, refusing to disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established.
Hamas has perhaps become more emboldened in this demand after key Israeli allies, including the UK, announced plans for formal recognition in the last week.
It’s hard to see a way forward. The current Israeli government has, in effect, abandoned the idea of a two-state solution.
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The Trump administration’s recent boycott of international conferences on the matter suggests America is taking a similar line, breaking with its long-standing position.
Arab nations could now be key in what happens next.
In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt joined a resolution calling for Hamas to disarm and surrender control of Gaza following a UN conference earlier this week.
This is hugely significant – highly influential powers in its own backyard have not applied this sort of pressure before.
For all the US delegation’s good intentions, it’s still political deadlock. Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza left to starve and suffer the consequences.
Tens of thousands of Sydney residents marched across the city’s iconic Harbour Bridge to support Palestinians in Gaza and call for an end to the war.
The decision to centre the protest on such an iconic landmark was controversial. The bridge is considered a symbol of unity in the city.
However, the Israel-Hamas war has been deeply divisive in Australia and increased tension between the country’s Jewish and Muslim communities.
Protesters walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Pic: AAP/Dean Lewins/Reuters
On Sunday there were pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney.
In Sydney organisers hoped 50,000 people would attend, despite heavy rain.
In the end, the bridge and the central business district were so packed – and the weather so bad – that police and organisers called the march off mid-way, fearing there would be a crush in the crowd.
Protest in Sydney. Pic: @emafranklin via Storyful
Police said the crowd numbers in the Sydney Harbour Bridge march were “far greater” than expected, creating the risk of a crowd crush.
“It was perilous,” said senior officer Peter McKenna, adding his force was “very lucky the crowd was well-behaved”.
The final figures for the number of people who attended haven’t been released. But it was an impressive turnout in the tens of thousands.
Some of those attending the march, called by its organisers the March for Humanity, carried pots and pans as symbols of the hunger in the besieged enclave of Gaza.
Julian Assange joined protesters. Pic: AAP/Dean Lewins/Reuters
There was also a surprise guest, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
He has largely kept a low profile since his release from a British prison last year. He didn’t speak to the crowd, but he was among those leading the march.
However, the demonstration almost didn’t happen after New South Wales police tried to stop it from taking place on the Harbour Bridge.
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On Saturday, the country’s Supreme Court ruled it could go ahead.
Despite the rain, there were families with children and seniors as well. It was a true cross-section of Australian society.
One of the protesters, Sarah, drove up from the Blue Mountains outside Sydney to attend.
She said, “enough is enough” and the Australian government should take “stronger action”.
Pro-Palestine protesters on Sydney Harbour Bridge
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Sarah also said Australians want people to know they care about what’s happening in the world.
Australia has not joined France, the UK and Canada is announcing plans to recognise a Palestinian state in September.
The government here says recognition is a matter of “when not if”. But it has not committed to any timeline.
Public pressure is growing on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to take a stronger stand against the war. So far, he has largely resisted that pressure.
But the government’s language towards Israel is becoming more critical.
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