The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) handed in a petition with 6,000 signatures to the head office of the Dunnes Stores’ supermarket chain in Dublin Thursday, calling on the chain to stop stocking Israeli products "until Israel respects Palestinian rights and international law."

IPSC chairperson Freda Hughes said all supermarkets selling Israeli goods would be targeted eventually but Dunnes had been chosen to start the campaign because of the historical significance of the anti-apartheid strike at the retailer in the 1980s, when workers were fired for not handling South African goods. Brendan Archbold, the trade union official at the centre of that strike, drew parallels between the old apartheid regime of South Africa and the state of Israel, accusing the Israeli military of a "shoot-to-kill policy”.