A GROUP OF academics is calling on the Taoiseach to intervene in the denial of visas to four Gazan students ahead of a High Court case that starts on Tuesday.

Four Gazan students have taken up their cases in the courts following the denial of their visas, despite having university places and scholarship funding to come to Ireland.

Three of the students are still in Gaza, and one is in Spain after the Spanish government intervened to secure his evacuation.

On Tuesday, the High Court will hear the minister for justice’s defence against judicial review challenges brought by the four students.

The group, comprised of academics and the Ireland-Palestine Alliance Sadaka, are calling on the Taoiseach and minister for foreign affairs to intervene to resolve this “appalling injustice” and ensure that the decisions on the applications of all affected students are re-made properly and in time for evacuation to occur.

If the students are to be included in the next internationally organised evacuation from Gaza in late October, their visas need to be granted before 15 October.

The group is also calling on all university administrations to keep the students’ places and funding open for them, for this academic year and where necessary for the academic year commencing September 2027, while they appeal. 

Visas have been refused to Gazan students “en masse”, the group said.

They estimate that around 115 Gazan students have had their visa applications denied.

This refusal “makes a mockery” of the Taoiseach’s speech to the UN General Assembly last month where he said that the international community has “failed” Palestine, the group said.

The group described last year’s arrangements by the Department of Foreign Affairs to evacuate students from Gaza as a “widespread source of pride throughout Ireland”. 

“We have been privileged to teach and get to know these students: they have contributed immensely to our universities and communities while performing very strongly in their studies,” they said. 

13% of long-stay study visa applications from Palestine were refused last year, which has increased to 83% this year.

“The difference seems to be that the Minister for Justice has taken over the decision-making, although the Department of Foreign Affairs still sends the correspondence,” the group said.

The group also said that Ireland, as a state party to the 1948 Genocide Convention, is obliged to “employ all means reasonably available” to prevent genocide so far as possible,

The International Commission, appointed by the UN, has pointed to the systematic destruction of the education system as a constitutive aspect of the genocide in Gaza.

“Ireland can, and therefore must, intervene to prevent this aspect of the genocide in Gaza,” the group said, “by protecting its people’s educational opportunity in ways that are eminently possible to do”.