Adnan Shabab, owner of Shaku Maku in Rathmines, said his restaurant received a letter 10 days ago from Dublin City Council stating that the mural was against guidelines and must be removed.
The Palestinian native, who runs the restaurant with his wife and family, came to Ireland from Palestine 26 years ago, setting up the popular Middle Eastern eatery in 2022.
Painted by popular Dublin street artist and anti-war activist, Emmalene Blake, Mr Shahab said the depiction “highlights the suffering” of his people.
“By now everyone knows the story of how many innocents have been killed and how many lives have been lost.
“It is a very nice piece of artwork from a very well-known Irish artist. For us it is a piece of art and we hope that it did not upset anybody. But we have been asked to take it down,” he told the Irish Independent.
In a statement following the council’s request, the restaurant said the mural, which was painted in November last year, came at a time when 4,000 innocent children had been killed.
“Since then it’s around 16,000. But at least Dublin City council has its plain black wall back,” the message from the restaurant read.
Despite the strong reaction to the council’s order, he did not want to “step on any toes” or have any trouble with the local authority and removed the mural.
Dublin City Council said in a response to a query that its Planning Enforcement Section does not make comments on specific live enforcement cases.
“However in general terms murals on the façade or gable walls of a building requires a prior grant of planning permission regardless of their content,” it added.
Mr Shahab said: “Maybe down the road we might do another one but we should ask if we could have it from the city council.”
He stressed that with so much going on in his home in Gaza, where much of his family and extended family are trapped, having a disagreement with the local authority is “the last thing” that the Shahab family need.
“I have so much family, my sister, my cousins, my aunty over there, they have been displaced over seven times. Some of my extended family has been killed,” he said.
The Rathmines restauranteur said there is not a single family in Palestine who has not been affected by the war with Israel.
If they are not being killed by direct fire, then they are being killed by a lack of available medicine or hunger, he added.
Mr Shahab said despite being a year on from the start of the conflict, nothing has been done to bring about a resolution or stop the war.
He described the level of stress and death in Gaza, where his parents were forced to migrate from South Palestine to in 1948, as “unimaginable”, adding that “Israel is getting away with this”.
Mr Shahab added that he would have loved for Dublin City Council to allow the mural to remain to highlight the scale of suffering in Gaza.
“Especially artwork. This is a piece of art and reflects people’s emotions, and they should have room for art to express, not only Gaza and Palestine, but any other social issue.
“Ireland has been one of the loudest voices for Palestine, at an official and a public level. We need more support and I think Ireland should use all of its power to put pressure on the UN and US,” he said.
“People just want this to end.”
