Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to see any innocent people being killed in the Middle East, nor do I think the Deputy does. He specifically mentioned Palestinian people. I would extend that to Israeli people, whom he did not mention. Innocent Israeli people should not be killed either, by Hamas or by any Palestinian armed group. Nor should any of our own citizens be killed. Let us not forget one of our own citizens, a joint Irish-Israeli whose mother comes from County Laois and whose family I have spoken to, was killed by Hamas two weeks ago.

We have great fears for Palestinian Irish citizens now living in Gaza that they may be victims in what Israel is doing in Gaza at the moment.

When it comes to sanctions, we always act multilaterally. Individually imposed sanctions are not effective. They would have no benefit for Palestinians and they might even do us a degree of harm. Sanctions are only effective when they are imposed multilaterally, by states acting together.

In relation to the ambassador, we do not have any plans to expel any ambassador. We did not expel the Russian ambassador, and I do not think anyone in this House has been as supportive of Ukraine's battle for freedom as I have been. We took a very particular view that it is important to have some line of communications open, and that is why we have ambassadors. If you expel an ambassador or close an embassy, the only line of communication is minister to minister, or secretary general to secretary general, and that is if you can even get a phone call. We have citizens in Palestine, Israel and Russia and it is important we are able to keep those lines of communication open. It serves nothing to close them. Even countries at war with each other have ambassadors, for that obvious reason.

On what is going on in Gaza, let me be clear. The view of the Irish Government is that collective punishment is wrong, and the innocent civilians and people of Gaza should not be subjected to collective punishment. That is wrong. Hostage-taking is wrong and hostages should be released, and it is not acceptable to target civilian infrastructure. We have been very clear about that all along and will continue to be so, and we will use our voice at European and EU level as much as we can.

While I think the Deputy is entirely sincere in his views and I know he has campaigned on these issues for a very long time, let us not forget what Hamas's objective is as well. Hamas's objective is the destruction of Israel. It is ending the existence of a Jewish state which was established by the UN 75 years ago. It is ending that state, from the river to the sea. Is that not genocide as well?

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