NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Demonstrators protest through Dublin city against the ongoing war in Gaza toward Leinster House. Rollingnews.ie Rollingnews.ie

• Ireland is not planning to suspend funding to a United Nations agency working with Palestinian refugees in the wake of the suspension of employees accused of involvement in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.   
• Cost-rental apartments which opened for applications in the last two weeks have attracted thousands of applications.
• A woman has been charged over an attack on a teenage boy left permanently scarred after being “slashed” with a blade from his ear to the back of his neck on a double-decker bus in Dublin.
• Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has been selected by his party colleagues to stand as a candidate for Dublin in the 2024 European Parliament elections.
• Gardaí in Dublin have arrested a man after the discovery of €300,000 worth of suspected heroin during a search in the city centre.
• Sinn Féin has come under pressure to boycott its St Patrick’s Day trip to the United States in light of the American government’s support of Israel.
• The DUP’s executive has been summoned for a meeting with their leader Jeffrey Donaldson on Monday, amid speculation that the party is inching closer to a deal with the UK Government over post-Brexit trading arrangements, which could see them return to devolved government.
• Fine Gael is set to update their local election canvas guidebook to include further guidance on how to discuss the issue of immigration on the doorsteps. 
• Teachers who are not eligible to earn the teaching-through-Irish allowance have told The Journal that it should be reintroduced “for the sake of equity”.

INTERNATIONAL

A rose lies on a stele at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#GAZA The UN Security Council will meet next week over the decision by the global body’s top court calling for Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, the council’s presidency has announced.

#YEMEN US Forces struck an anti-ship missile in Houthi-held Yemen that they said was ready to fire, hours after the Iran-backed rebels caused a fire on a British tanker in the Gulf of Aden with a similar munition.

#UKRAINE The war in Ukraine will be among the “immediate priorities” for Galway native Michael O’Flaherty when he takes up his new role as the Human Rights Commissioner for the Council of Europe.

#PHILIPINES Nine Islamist militants, including three suspects in a Catholic mass bombing in the southern Philippines, have been killed in a clash with troops, the military has said.

PARTING SHOT

Carl Kinsella’s weekly column casting an eye across the week’s events is worth a read. 

This week he laments the departure of Jurgen Klopp, the preliminary order by the International Court of Justice against Israel and the latest twist in the Toy Show: The Musical saga. 

Carl concludes with a view on the sentencing of a man for the vandalism of one of the Luke Kelly statues in Dublin.