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

-----and try to rescue the hostages who are currently being held in Gaza. I hope we can all agree on that. I also hope we can agree on a third thing, namely, that it is not acceptable for Israel in defending itself to violate international humanitarian law, to target civilians, to cut off civilian infrastructure or to order people to be displaced to the south of Gaza. I hope we can agree on all those things.

I specifically asked about the consular situation. We are in constant contact with a number of citizens in Gaza and all the relevant authorities regarding their cases. We are also closely working with the EU and other states that have citizens in Gaza too. On citizens in Israel, the main airport, Ben Gurion at Tel Aviv, remains open and commercial flights are available. We are assisting Irish citizens to depart through commercial means.

We are also monitoring the situation at Rafah, where the border crossing situation remains fluid. We are in contact with the relevant authorities through our embassies in Tel Aviv and Cairo, and our office in Ramallah, to assist Irish citizens who want to leave to do so, as soon as foreign passport holders are allowed to do so.

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